THEY LIVE
You watch. I subliminally command you!
By a country mile, They Live is John Carpenter's silliest movie - and this is a man who made one starring Chevy Chase! It seems to be aiming for some sort of depth and message, but it's so goofy that any attempt to take it seriously will go flying out the window very quickly. As such, it's a real hoot; it's like a smarter version of Armageddon in that the more seriously it wants you to take it, the funnier it gets. And while Armageddon might never get much more credit from me than as being an unintended, guilty pleasure, They Live always delights with the hint that maybe, just maybe, Carpenter knows how silly this all is.
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper stars as Nada, a drifter (you can tell he's a drifter because of his backpack), who keeps backing into things, who drifts on in to L.A. from Colorado, looking for work in a devastated, recessed economy. Devastated for the lower class, at any rate; those rich folks seem to be doing pretty well. Anyway, he gets some work at a construction site, and some shelter at a shantytown just outside the downtown core. Soon, he finds that many of those well-off rich folks aren't what they appear to be. In fact, nothing is; he finds these high-tech sunglasses that let him see (and hear!) the world as it really is - subliminally manipulated by extraterrestrials who are living the high life on the backs of the working class! If this ain't a commie propaganda movie, I don't know what is!
Piper, surprisingly, is quite good in his role, most of the time. One gets to feel the certain kind of quiet humiliation of being so desperate for work in his early scenes; his imploring, defeated eyes go way against his macho pro-wrestler persona, and the effect is startling. Later in the film, he tends to screw up his delivery of some potentially hilarious one-liners (the best of which was made immortal not by this film but by Duke Nukem). And what's with him making the exact same gesture every time he gets a headache?
The rest of the cast is mostly adequate; Keith David (or is it David Keith?) is the sole standout as Frank, an aggressively apathetic (!) man who Nada befriends. Meg Foster's here too, but she's not given much to do. This ain't a movie that works on the strength of the actors; it's the sheer silly tone of the thing, that persists no matter how deeply we try to read into the film.
Television is portrayed as the enemy here; we're shown several shots of people standing or sitting in front of TV's (which are usually showing the must impossibly dumb shows), slack-jawed, as if hypnotized. It turns out that the aliens are using our TV's to broadcast a signal that keeps us in a sleep-like waking state. You'd think that the message here would be that to "wake up", you'd have to turn off the TV. No dice; the signal keeps going even when the TV is off!
This new reality as revealed is a wonder to behold. The scene where Nada first discovers this is both somewhat disturbing and exhilirating. Not only are the aliens revealed as themselves, but all printed matter says something other than what we think - a sexy billboard really says "MARRY AND REPRODUCE", and a dollar bill says "THIS IS YOUR GOD". It's as fascinating a concept as the "real" reality we were introduced to in this year's The Matrix - whereas that film concentrated on the exploration and mastery of the "false" reality, this one concentrates more on the "real" one. Note also how the "real" reality is shown as being in black & white, whereas what the sleeping people see day to day in their dream state is in color (much like The Wizard Of Oz). (late in the film somebody in the background makes some reference to "colorizing" - whatever that's supposed to mean, I've never figured out. No interpretation seems to hold up.)
The weird centerpiece of this movie is a seven-minute fistfight in the middle of the film between Nada and Frank. I mean, holy shit, guys; it's like Sideshow Bob stepping on all those rakes. It's funny, and then it's boring, and then it's really boring, and then it';s amusing, and then it's hilarious. And what are they fighting over? One guy wants another to put on the glasses! That's it! They beat the shit out of each other for seven nonstop minutes over THAT?
There are a number of ways to look at this scene, and they all come out as pretty silly. Is it just an excuse to show off top-billed Piper's wrestling moves? An illustration of the lengths some must be taken to in order to snap their apathy, of an example of the aliens' "divide and conquer" tactis? An illustration of the numbing effect of television, in the most numbing possible way - since more people indeed would be watching this movie on TV/video than in the theater? Hell, I don't know - what I do know is that it's one of the weirdest things in the entire Carpenter canon.
It all gets weirder. Note how the "heroic" Nada reacts to his initial revelation of just what the world around him is like - he grabs a shotgun and goes on a rampage! Mowing down helpless, unarmed aliens left and right as they scream in terror and get their brains spattered about. This is seriously psycho behavior, the work of a complete maniac! (I mean, really - after ten minutes of seeing the world this way, is this really a well-reasoned, ethically defensible way to react?) But this is put across as heroic action, which might disgust some, might slip by others...it made me laugh even harder!
The aliens look ridiculous, although I do admit that I had a poster for this movie on my wall in high school. They also use the Ghostbusters' Ecto-meter to track down our heroes. And the movie's rabidly anti-capitalistic stance brings images of On Deadly Ground to mind - it really does reach that level of preachiness. All it needs is a five-minute speech from Piper at the conclusion to a crowd of Indians who nod at each other as if to say "White man make sense!"
And that's to say nothing of the goofy plot, which would have us believe that the aliens' dominion over us is dependent upon a single communications array on the roof of an L.A. skyscraper (this is a nationwide empire they've got?). You've gotta love those sunglasses that let you even HEAR the subliminals, the "romantic interest" whose only possible reason to be in the movie is obviously to betray our heroes, and that fancy dinner for tux-n-gown-clad upper-class humans who collaborate with the aliens, who never once notice our obviously working-class heroes and their guns.
All that silliness works very well in the film. The overt comedy, however, does not. (what's with the garbage truck scene?) There are only a couple of moments in the film that inspire laughter when they're obviously supposed to. (after mowing down half an office floor of aliens, the exasperated heroes desperately ask some employees "How do we get to the roof?") (or, my favorite, Nada's abortive attempt to both laugh and apologize for accidentally smashing a car window during that fistfight)
This movie was based on the short story "Eight O'Clock In The Morning" by Ray Nelson, which I would've read by now if I could find it. It has since been ripped off by both King and Koontz, Koontz surprisingly doing a better job than King for once. Anyway, I have no idea if the tone of the story is much like this film; I suspect not, since it's got Carpenter written all over it. The last thing we see of our hero is him giving the aliens the finger (never noticed it til this viewing - it's almost eliminated in the pan n scan). If that ain't Carp, I don't know what is.
And in true Carpenter fashion, the ending of this movie is the best part. (of how many directors can that be said?) How can you not laugh hysterically at that final line, and the shots leading up to it?
Yeah, it's commie propaganda, but it's fun commie propaganda. What, you expected to be convinced? I'm not even sure I'm convinced that Carpenter wanted us to be. Whatever he intended, he's crafted a mightily entertaining film.