John Carpenter's "They Live" (1988)

I need to admit something right off the bat… I don’t watch many movies, especially horror movies. When given this challenge, I didn’t have the faintest idea as to where to start. I turned to Facebook and asked my friends for suggestions. A good friend of mine directed me to this gem: John Carpenter’s “They Live.”

DUN DUN DUN.

Honestly, the only reason I chose this is because Rowdy Roddy Piper from WWF (aka “WWE”) played the lead. I don’t know a single 80’s kid that didn’t watch WWF. In fact, wrestling brings me back to happier, more carefree days… It reminds me of how cool I was back in the day. And those mullets. Ohhhh the mullets… I sported one of those (being a cool kid and all), but the boyfriend won’t let me revisit my youth.

Alas, I digress.

Anyway, the mullets did make me happy, but not nearly as happy as I was to see Piper with some pants on. Already, this movie is putting me in a good place. Some initial observations from the opening scene: Piper is jobless, kiltless, sad that there are no jobs for him, homeless—oop!-- now he’s shirtless, and a patriot (he believes his situation will get better, which is crucial for Pipers’ future in this movie), and finally, he’s talented, exemplified by a lonely jam-out session on a harmonica in the dark, dank slums. 

Killing 2 birds with one stone here: Piper's mullet and him looking for work!

Piper’s character (whose name is never revealed in the movie), as well as some other homeless men, is somehow watching TV outside. The show craps out and some freaky dude talks to the homeless people, trying to convince them that the world is evil and everyone’s being brainwashed. Piper notices some shit going down across the street—namely, a blind religious zealot saying, word for word, what the crazy man is saying. This sparks interest in Piper’s character and he investigates the church across the street to find that… lo and behold, it isn’t a church at all, but a lab/hideout for the crazy man on TV! 

Shit really begins to go down, as the police raid the fake church as well as the slum that Piper and his gang are situated. Hordes of SWAT officers, accompanied by a bulldozer, level the slum and own the people in the church. Why? Mmmmm… leave it to Piper to find out!

The next day, he goes back to the fake church and finds sunglasses. Yup. Sunglasses. He humours himself and puts on a pair only to find the images through the lenses are all distorted. Billboards now display messages like “CONSUME” and “OBEY.” Not only that, but when he looks at certain people, they’re aliens. Yup. Aliens.

Spoiler: not everyone in a suit and tie are aliens!

Piper notices that rich, powerful people are aliens through these lenses. In fact, many of the police officers are also aliens (now it makes sense why they levelled the slum, now doesn’t it?). Something in him snaps, he takes it out on a crotchety old lady (alien), two officers try to subdue him, and what does he do? Effing closeline. This is what I was waiting to see. Piper does some fancy stuff, takes their guns, and goes postal in a bank. But not before he drops this one-liner:

“I came here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I’m all out of bubblegum.”

This is where I paused the movie. Seriously? I’ve heard this before… Duke Nukem. That’s when I drew the parallel: Rowdy Roddy Piper, in this movie, quite possibly inspired Duke Nukem. Blonde hair. Sunglasses. Muscle-y goodness. Sporting guns. Killing aliens. Wow. Just… wow.

HMMMM.

He continues to shoot people and kick ass throughout the movie. I know as well as the next person that no movie where kicking ass is the main theme is complete without an African American accomplice. Enter the 5-minute WTF fight scene with a black guy (played by Keith David, famous for such roles as “Goliath” in the cartoon Gargoyles), all because Piper wants this dude to wear the sunglasses and see the truth. The internet tells me the fight scene was only supposed to take 20 seconds, but Piper and David wanted to kick each others’ asses “for real,” so they went all Family Guy on the situation. 

Seeing the truth when Piper forces the sunglasses on him, David agrees to kick ass and chew bubblegum with him, and more needless killing ensues. Actually… that was the gist of the rest of the movie. 

Other than the Duke Nukem parallel I drew, the theme of consumerism taking over America was also prominent. Carpenter did a wonderful job with this by displaying messages such as “THIS IS YOUR GOD” on dollar bills when wearing the sunglasses. The perceived power that the “aliens” had is seen every day. Wealthy, powerful people, while very few in numbers, tower over the rest of the population and ultimately run the show. One character in the movie had admitted that there was no point in resisting such a power (“if you can’t beat them, join them.”), which really stuck out to me. It’s an attitude I see all too often today. It’s so much easier to conform, it seems.

All in all, “They Live” was not in the least scary, but rather very insightful for a gamer geek like myself. The acting was pretty terrible (a requirement for 80’s movies, I’ve found), and Piper was often found awkwardly standing about with the wrong expression on his face for the situation (a half-grin while the slum is being ploughed?). In the end, I couldn’t think of a better way to spend an hour and a half after a long day... Except for maybe killing things myself (video games, not in real life. Promise.). 

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