Review of They Live

Introduction

John Carpenter films have a touch of the cult following about them. Carpenter is certainly not a main-stream director, his films are more than a little dark and generally feature a hero-type figure who is just a ordinary bloke placed into an abnormal situation where he is forced to make a stand.

In They Live, that man is Ralph Nada (Roddy Piper), a drifter who picks up work where he can in order to survive. Late 80`s America has an undercurrent of working class deprivation, which seems to have more in common with the Great Depression than we might otherwise believe.

In this town, Nada becomes (more) aware of things around him not quite being what they seem. He discovers a Church that is really the base/laboratory for some kind of underground movement, although all he finds as evidence is a box of sunglasses. When he eventually tries a pair on, he discovers the true world around him; subliminal messages to keep the population docile and happy, and strange creatures living undetected amongst us.

After the fight to end all fights, Nada teams up with fellow worker Frank (Keith David) to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and they`re all out of bubblegum…

Video

Nice anamorphic presentation with no real signs of degradation or damage. The shots with the b&w lenses of the sunglasses are done well, can`t quite make up my mind if they were shot separately or treat in an SFX house (which in my mind shows that Carpenter has done his job well). Other thing of note is that Meg Foster has the most remarkably striking eyes.

Audio

Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix that is as effective as it needs to be, the gunfire and explosions sound crisp. Nice selection of subtitles, although why the English subtitles start with the title being subtitled is beyond me…

Carpenter once more provides his trademark electronic score, but it`s a little different this time. Brooding electronic bass with a mid-West hobo-ish and mournful feel to it. Obviously this theme is repeated right the way through as per usual.

Features

Making Of - filmed during the making of the film, oddly enough. Quite short, but ok in that you get an idea of what they`re up to rather than just EPK-lite. Quality is quite grainy in places, showing its age.

Commentary with John Carpenter and Roddy Piper - quite informative and fun commentary. What I found amazing was that at the time of recording (circa 2000) Piper had made more films than Carpenter…

Conclusion

This is all the fault of Brian Elliott, you know. He happened to mention this film in his recent review of WWE: Born To Controversy, and it sparked an itch that wouldn`t be scratched. I remembered this film from back in the late 80`s and had an urge to seek it out. I found it quite cheap on Amazon and picked it up with The Thing, Escape From New York and The Running Man; all these to look forward to soon. Aren`t you lucky?

Carpenter at his best, or near best, uses a genre setting to place an ordinary man in a situation where he must make a stand and essentially become a hero, a position he wouldn`t have sought ordinarily. They Live is a sci-fi story where a man in jeans and checked shirts battles aliens in smart suits amid conspiracy theories galore, but it`s also a comment on mid 80`s America. I guess Carpenter had a vision of his country creating an underclass of the average working Joe, caused by the Reagan administration and the Gordon Gecko factor; this was the decade of greed after all, although I can`t testify to how accurate the allusion to cardboard camps for this underclass really is (cardboard camps that have electricity for TV sets though…). This underclass are the true spirit of America according to Carpenter, the upper and middle classes collaborating in keeping them in their place in return for the mighty dollar. Consumerism and, presumably by default, capitalism are the modern ills alluded to here. No solution is posed here, merely a hint at what may be driving it.

One of the criticisms of this film is in the fight sequence where Roddy Piper is trying to convince Keith David of what is going down. It`s especially long and quite `down and dirty`, certainly longer than any screen fights I can remember watching bar the ridiculously overstretched fights of The Matrix and its sequels. It`s clear that Carpenter wanted to use Piper`s skill from the wrestling world on film and both Carpenter and Piper make it clear that they wanted to show a fight that had never been seen on screen before. Well, they accomplished that with aplomb, although they may just have bored a few people used to the hero slogging his way through the bad guy in about a minute rather than what is probably close to 2-3 minutes but feels like 10.

For a debut actor, Piper is pretty good. Not Academy Award material, but good nonetheless and had the charisma and demeanour that the role demanded. Carpenter has said that Piper `oozed life` and you can see that, a more conventional actor may not have had the same impact as the ex-wrestler. Keith David is also excellent and is virtually the co-star in this film, looking forward to seeing him again soon in The Thing.

A nice revisit to a pretty good film. Cheers, Brian.