I Watch Films: They Live
Hard times in America; Nada (wrestler Roddy Piper) arrives in Los Angeles looking for work. After police destroy the homeless encampment he’s staying in he finds a pair of sunglasses that show subliminal messages and strange, skull faced aliens.
Like many John Carpenter heroes, his solution is to go on a violent rampage. Which is enjoyable! The aliens, who are big old capitalists (which accounts for the political tag this film has enjoyed), are strangely ineffective, relying on their mind control methods that keep people “asleep”. (The title of the film comes from a graffito that reads “They Live, We Sleep”.)
There’s a good scene in the middle in which Nada tries to convince a friend to try on the sunglasses; the friend, thinking he’s gone off the deep end refuses and they fight in an alleyway for several minutes. It’s good for this reason: the stakes are high – if Nada can’t even convince one person, then how can he even fight the aliens? – but not story ending; he might win or he might lose. Also, neither of them really wants to hurt the other, so it escalates slowly, each trying just a bit harder when one of them lands a blow. And the fight itself is pretty good!
As in many of his films, Carpenter worked on the score. It’s not one of his classics; the early, slow dreamy parts a bit too folksy, though the version where it turns into fight mode is pretty clever.
Watch This: For a classic science fiction action thriller with just enough of an edge to its ideas that it’s interesting even when people aren’t fighting.
Don’t Watch This: If action setpieces that involve shotgunning aliens aren’t for you.
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