They Live
They Live is a 1988 American science fiction action horror film written, directed, and scored by John Carpenter, and starring Roddy Piper, Keith David, and Meg Foster. It was based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson.
Having acquired the film rights to the story prior to the production of They Live, Carpenter used the story as the basis for the screenplay's structure, which he wrote under the pseudonym "Frank Armitage". Carpenter has stated that the themes of They Live stemmed from his dissatisfaction with the economic policies of then-U.S. President Ronald Reagan, as well as what Carpenter saw as increasing commercialization in both popular culture and politics.
They Live was a minor success upon release, debuting at number 1 at the North American box office. It initially received negative reviews from critics, who lambasted its social commentary, writing, and acting; however, it later gained a cult following and experienced a significantly more favorable critical reception. It is now regarded by many as one of Carpenter's best films. The film has also entered the pop culture lexicon, notably having a lasting effect on street art.
Premise
Nada, a working class drifter, discovers that the ruling class are aliens concealing their appearance and manipulating people to consume, breed, and conform to the status quo via subliminal messages in mass media.Plot
Nada is a homeless man who comes to Los Angeles, California in pursuit of work, where he spots a preacher warning that "they" have recruited the rich and powerful to control humanity. He finds employment at a construction site and befriends his coworker Frank, who invites him to live in a shantytown near a church, where he meets their community leader, Gilbert.A hacker takes over TV broadcasts, alerting that humanity is "their cattle" and the only way to unfold the truth is to shut off the signal at its source. Those watching the broadcast complain of headaches. Nada follows Gilbert and the preacher into the church, discovering a recording of gospel music playing that unbeknownst to Nada obscures a meeting with a group including the hacker. Nada also uncovers equipment and boxes inside, but escapes when he bumps into the preacher. The shantytown and church are destroyed in a police raid, and the hacker and preacher are brutalized by law enforcement officers.
Nada retrieves one of the boxes from the church and takes a pair of sunglasses from it, concealing the box in a trash pile. He finds out that they make the world appear monochrome and reveal subliminal messages in the media to consume and conform. They also disclose that many people are ghoulish, bug-eyed aliens hiding under human façades. Additionally, the creatures have wristwatch communicators that allow them to teleport, along with surveillance drones. When aliens at a supermarket realize that Nada can detect them, he is confronted by two alien police officers. He kills them, steals their guns, and enters a bank, where he sees that multiple employees and customers are aliens. He kills several and escapes by taking a human, Holly Thompson, hostage. Nada attempts to persuade her to put on the glasses, but she throws him out of a window. While speaking to the police, Holly realizes that Nada dropped his glasses on her carpet.
While Nada retrieves another pair of sunglasses from the trash pile, Frank comes to give him his paycheck and orders him to stay away following Nada's killing spree becoming widespread news. Realizing that Frank is not one of the aliens, Nada pleads with Frank to put on the glasses, but he refuses, and eventually the two come to blows. After a long and painful fight, Nada subdues Frank, and places the glasses on his face. Seeing the aliens for himself, and now believing Nada, Frank agrees to go into hiding together. The two run into Gilbert, who introduces them to the human resistance. They are given contact lenses to replace the sunglasses and learn about the aliens using global warming to make Earth's atmosphere similar to their homeworld while depleting its resources for their own gain. They also learn that the aliens have been bribing human collaborators in exchange for wealth. Holly joins the meeting, bringing information about where the signal may be originating. Soon afterwards, the meeting is raided by police, with the majority of those present killed and the survivors scattered. Nada and Frank are cornered in an alley, but Frank activates an alien wristwatch, opening a portal to the alien's spaceport on Earth under Cable 54, an alien-run news network.
Coming across a meeting of aliens and wealthy collaborators celebrating the defeat of the human resistance, they are approached by a drifter from the shantytown, now a collaborator. Mistaking them for new recruits, he gives the pair a tour of the facility, where the aliens broadcast a signal that prevents humans from identifying them and their hidden messages. Nada and Frank locate Holly and fight their way to the transmitter on the roof, but Holly, a collaborator responsible for the raid, murders Frank. Nada kills Holly and destroys the transmitter, but is killed by a police helicopter. With the signal shut down, he gives them the middle finger as he dies.
Owing to the transmitter being destroyed, humans all over the world discover the aliens hiding among them.
Cast
Themes
Carpenter has said that the film's political commentary derives from his dissatisfaction with then–U.S. President Ronald Reagan's economic policies—also known as Reaganomics—and what Carpenter viewed as increasing commercialization in both the popular culture and politics of the era.In an interview given around the time of the film's release, Carpenter remarked, "The picture's premise is that the 'Reagan Revolution' is run by aliens from another galaxy. Free enterprisers from outer space have taken over the world, and are exploiting Earth as if it's a third world planet. As soon as they exhaust all our resources, they'll move on to another world...I began watching TV again. I quickly realized that everything we see is designed to sell us something.... It's all about wanting us to buy something. The only thing they want to do is take our money." To this end, Carpenter thought of sunglasses as being the tool to seeing the truth, which "is seen in black and white. It's as if the aliens have colorized us. That means, of course, that Ted Turner is really a monster from outer space." The director commented on the alien threat in an interview: "They want to own all our businesses. A Universal executive asked me, 'Where's the threat in that? We all sell out every day.' I ended up using that line in the film." The aliens were deliberately made to look like ghouls, according to Carpenter, who said "The creatures are corrupting us, so they, themselves, are corruptions of human beings."
In another interview, Carpenter clarified that his criticisms of society and the film business contained in the film were not entirely serious. He stated in American Cinematographer, "I've made a lot of money in the film business the way it is run today, and I am a complete capitalist. I'm just advocating a little humanity in the world. In order to do that, you have to go strong in the other direction, be a little outrageous. It’s fun to attack the status quo."
In 2017, in response to neo-Nazi interpretations of the film's themes, Carpenter further clarified that the film "is about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism" and "has nothing to do with Jewish control of the world".
Production
Development
The film was based on a short story by Ray Nelson entitled "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" which appeared in the November 1963 issue of The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction. The story's protagonist, George Nada, discovers that aliens have already invaded and taken over Earth. A comics adaptation, entitled "Nada" and illustrated by Bill Wray, appeared in the anthology comic book Alien Encounters in April 1986. Carpenter replaced the more outlandish looking aliens of the comic with humanoid bipeds.Carpenter describes Nelson's story as "... a D.O.A.-type of story, in which a man is put in a trance by a stage hypnotist. When he awakens, he realizes that the entire human race has been hypnotized, and that alien creatures are controlling humanity. He has only until eight o'clock in the morning to solve the problem." Carpenter acquired the film rights to both the short story and the comics version.
As the screenplay was the product of so many sources Carpenter decided to use the pseudonym "Frank Armitage", an allusion to one of the filmmaker's favorite writers, H. P. Lovecraft. Carpenter has always felt a close kinship with Lovecraft's worldview, and according to the director "Lovecraft wrote about the hidden world, the 'world underneath'. His stories were about gods who are repressed, who were once on Earth and are now coming back. The world underneath has a great deal to do with They Live."