They Live.

Review #1298: They Live.

Cast: 
Roddy Piper (John Nada), Keith David (Frank Armitage), Meg Foster (Holly Thompson), Raymond St. Jacques (Street Preacher), George Buck Flower (Drifter/Collaborator), Peter Jason (Gilbert), Sy Richardson (Black Revolutionary), Susan Blanchard (Ingenue), and Norman Alden (Construction Foremanst) Directed by John Carpenter (#068 - Halloween (1978), #634 - Escape from New York, #712 - The Thing, #732 - Escape from L.A., and #1221 - Dark Star)

Review: 
It should only make sense that the only way to see aliens of the subliminal kind are a pair of sunglasses. The idea for the film came from the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson, which he subsequently adapted with artist Bill Wray into a graphic comic named "Nada" in 1986. As such, the screenplay credit went to Frank Armitage, a pseudonym for Carpenter (who naturally also co-wrote the music score with Alan Howarth). In any case, it really is a variation on Invasion of the Body Snatchers (why else would you have the aliens shown in black-and-white for most of the film), only if the aliens were already here and ready to help people sell out and obey in the vein of an sci-fi action thriller. In that sense, it works out pretty well in the film's favor, one that is packed with plenty of entertainment that is derived from clever subversive material and a mold of action and humor to go alongside it that never seems dull or too convenient. The film holds itself on the every-man in Piper, who signed onto the film after Carpenter met with him in the middle of his run as a professional wrestler. He can play the parts of the action hero like one could see in a b-movie (with that noted bubble-gum line seeming right out of his one-liner notebook) that comes in handy when needed that surely paved the way for other wrestler-turned-actors, but he plays himself with careful simplicity that seems just right for a guy like him. David does a fine job with a quasi-sidekick kind of role, where he can join alongside the action against sellout aliens or even the fight just to believe there even is one needed, which leads to the key highlight for both actors: a five minute fight scene between the two where they just take it to the other. It really does prove astounding how one can make such a scene that is so memorable (imagine having to rehearse that for three weeks) while not leaving the film off balance during the other parts of its 94 minute run-time. Foster is fair and subtle, and the other castmates pull their momentary plays on screen with interest in making a small environment like this seem like one to look at for a while and think about. The effects involving the aliens (resembling ghouls) looks pretty neat for the intent that the film wants to do. The action is also pretty well-done with blending with the rest of the film without suffocating it, and the climax is a nice touch. Of course a film that is meant to be subversive has its shares of political devotees, which are either people who understand the film or partisan ghouls for a certain supremacist side (I only include this sentence lest someone actually think this film is about anything but yuppies and unrestrained capitalism) or nearly as annoying Marxist hacks. In any case, one can enjoy the film for either its action content or its attempts at saying something about the nature of our society when it comes to commercialism through the lens of science fiction that delivers plenty of thrills and thought to go around.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.