They Live (1988)
Directed by John Carpenter
A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.
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5 films that influenced They Live
What critics say influenced They Live
A little bit "1984" and a little bit "Rambo."
The closest he got to a theme seemed to be in Halloween, with its implicit message that girls who “fooled around” get offed by the Boogeyman, but plucky virgins don’t.
With such harrowing films as The Thing, Halloween, and Escape From New York under his belt, John Carpenter has proven himself one of the world’s top directors in the sci-fi/horror/thriller genres.
As the co-writer and director of the fine Halloween, the excellent Escape From New York, the outstanding The Thing, Carpenter is too talented to rest on his laurels by relying on a half-realized story premise to carry the day without proper shaping and development -- the movie runs out of workable material by about the thirty-minute mark, and all we can do is watch an uninteresting hero who we have no emotional stake in lumbering about in a creaky plot that has all the narrative drive of a drunken snail.
John Carpenter has made many classic films and they’ve varied between horror, sci-fi, action, drama, and comedy; Assault On Precinct 13, Escape From New York, Big Trouble In Little China, Starman, They Live… too many to list here, but it’s undoubtedly Halloween, John’s third full-length feature (second if you count Dark Star as a student film) and first major cinema release that most people will think of when you mention his name.
For the best and most ambitious of John Carpenter's films you should watch They Live or The Thing , or a slightly lesser but still quite sound horror movie like The Fog .
Verhoeven's best and most vulgar American work was still in front of him, but RoboCop still stands as one of the most rude-tempered, rollicking gobs of spit in the face of 1980s politics this side of John Carpenter's They Live.
As the co-writer and director of the fine Halloween, the excellent Escape From New York, the outstanding The Thing, Carpenter is too talented to rest on his laurels by relying on a half-realized story premise to carry the day without proper shaping and development -- the movie runs out of workable material by about the thirty-minute mark, and all we can do is watch an uninteresting hero who we have no emotional stake in lumbering about in a creaky plot that has all the narrative drive of a drunken snail.
With such harrowing films as The Thing, Halloween, and Escape From New York under his belt, John Carpenter has proven himself one of the world’s top directors in the sci-fi/horror/thriller genres.
That’s what a drifter played by wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper discovers in this endlessly absurd and enjoyable movie from the man who gave us Big Trouble in Little China and Escape From New York.
Director John Carpenter had one brilliant moneymaker to his name (Halloween) and a couple of uncompromising triumphs on the horizon (his gory 1982 remake of The Thing; 1988’s paranoid They Live) when he settled into burned-out East St.
Finally, and perhaps most exemplary, They Live (1988) is about a homeless guy (played by wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper) who finds a pair of magic sunglasses that reveals an alien invasion and conspiracy that has invaded every part of the media, including what we see and hear.
Escape from New York is not as enthralling as the metaphor-rich, Reagan-era They Live and the parallel action isn't as pronounced or intoxicating as it was in The Fog , but its politics are no less immediate (the constantly shifting alliances, individualism versus collectivism, the distrust of authority and the overriding public relations fiasco that closes the film).
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Carpenter's fourth feature as a director, "The Fog" was his first relative -- albeit honorable -- misfire; it's fairly unique as a 1980s horror movie, but it remains a lesser work in a directorial filmography that includes "Escape from New York," "The Thing," "They Live," "Big Trouble in Little China," even "Christine."
(Though it should be said that some of the gags that Dante engages in here, Carpenter will ape later in films such as They Live and Vampires.)