John Carpenter’s impetus for wanting to become a filmmaker was Jack Arnold’s It Came from Outer Space atop the famed Westerns of the era. As a result, many of his works reflect his infatuation with both genres in that many of his lone protagonists come to find themselves in horrific circumstances. It can be said that They Live is the penultimate example of the director’s influences as he aligns himself in the tradition of Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Larry Cohen’s The Stuff as Carpenter presents us with a “Us verses Them” indictment of media and Big Government.
A construction worker named Nada (Roddy Piper) finds a pair of sunglasses which permit him to pierce through the veil of the sublimated messages from the media, marketing campaigns, and government. Furthermore, his epiphany-goading spectacles reveal that a portion of the populace are those responsible for such underhanded actions: aliens, whose purpose is to subdue Earthlings by any means necessary in order to procure the planet for their own self-interest.
As there are few Horror Westerns, there are even fewer explicit socio-political horror films. As such, They Live is, if nothing else, a treat in that it is a welcome deviation from the norm, especially in the often rote genre of horror. However, not content upon merely filling a void, Carpenter goes on to provide us with a campy, B-movie while simultaneously creating a socially-astute litmus for the period.
Many have commented that the film’s action does begin until almost midway through the feature. However, Carpenter patiently allots himself time in which to carefully outline the circumstances before revealing how they came to be. They Live opens with a drifter named Nada (the character’s title is only listed in the credits and is never addressed during the film, making Pipper an Everyman figure) entering a city looking for work. It is during this time that the director inserts a Shakespearian fool (Raymond St. Jacques) which, as always, prophetically foreshadows the events of what will inevitably follow (Carpenter twists the aesthetic thumbscrews all the more by making the figure a blind preacher). After finding a position as a construction worker, Nada reluctantly follows Frank (Keith David) to a shantytown development (ironically named “Justiceville”). We watch as disenchanted workers, Frank included, vehemently protest the “Haves” but, all the while, willfully absorb the soporific effects of the television’s perpetual feed (earlier in the film, Nada peers voyeuristically upon a woman watching another female on television, the latter ironically fantasying about unobtainable fame), the object in which we come to discover is the source of the working class’s plight.
After establishing the juxtaposed scenarios of the Haves and Have-Nots in place of the archetypical “Us verses Them” motif of 1950’s invasion narrative, we learn, via Nada’s subliminal-penetrating sunglasses, that, indeed, the earth is host to a hidden population of aliens (the Lovecraftian theme of a hidden world being one of Carpenter’s favorites is also reflected in the director adopting the pseudonym “Frank Armitage” as the pen behind the script, the title of the gothic writer’s central character in “The Dunwich Horror”) whose intention, much like the Reaganites which they represent, is to subdue and control the masses, either by psychological manipulation via marketing, or, for the “Seers,” dirty money. Scathingly, the invaders are referred to as “Free Enterprisers” who have come to a “developing world” and that those who understand their intents but refuse to be bought off are subsequently labeled as Communists (in order to provide a nationalistic catalyst for the human cops to forthrightly thwart the Underground). Cleverly, when we are permitted to view the world devoid of Capitalism’s constant hum, it appears as the aliens would have it: a clear black-or-white scenario (double entendre indeed), à la 1950’s cinema or, perhaps more fittingly, a Keeping Up with the Joneses-style television advertisement of the period.
Many have accused Carpenter’s film of being too blatant in that it presents and wears its agenda upon its sleeve. This is due largely to Nada and Frank’s five-and-a-half minute alley brawl. However, once one takes into account that both individuals represent the working class and that the two are fighting over whether or not to remain with the status quo, we come to realize that Carpenter is issuing a critique of why Big Money’s subversion of the blue-collar world has persisted as long as it has.
The notorious fight scene does literally drive a point home but it also, as one reviewer acutely notes, resembles “the slugfest between John Wayne and Victor McLaglen in John Ford’s The Quiet Man.” If nothing else, we come to admire Carpenter for he shows us how closely aligned the horror genre is with the Western ideal as the film’s Western soundtrack, which pervades the proceedings, is pithily fitting. Furthermore, Frank and Nada’s friendship borders upon homoeroticism at times. This, atop the sunglasses which Nada finds being dubbed “Hoffman lenses,” parallels and reinforces the director’s premise of mainstream subversion (Hoffman being the surname of the individual who discovered LSD).
Critics are divided in their assessment of Pipper’s acting abilities. Carpenter masterfully grants us a film which largely shows as opposed to tells its story as the lead actor is silent throughout much of the feature while his withdrawn loner is often seen meditating as his hands preoccupy themselves. It should come as no surprise that Pipper, regardless of one’s final assessment of his performance, satisfactorily plays the part in that, having come from the world of professional wrestling, has made a career of working from scripts.
Predictably, Carpenter’s trademark black humor is ever-present in They Live. Not only do we come to realize that a professional wrestler is our Christ figure and that Conservatives are depicted as no less than aliens whose execution of their moral and economic agendas are synonymous with outright invasion, but Nada, upon the aliens’ discovery that he can See, flees into a bank (hmmm . . . wonder what types will be populating that particular type of establishment) with, natch, a handful of firearms. Of course, aside from the fight scene, the film is perhaps most well-known for its often referenced line, “I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubble gum,” my favorite maimed citation of which being Mystery Science Theater 3000’s “I’ve come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of ass.”
Granted, John Carpenter’s They Live does not aim for subtly by and large as its explicit indictment upon the era and the class divide juxtaposes the Machiavellian manipulation of those in power. However, the director wisely dilutes his thesis with a B-movie sensibility as his sardonic black humor and casting nonetheless highlight how closely affiliated the horror narrative is to the Western film. The feature, as its director, is a rare breed that few appreciate but those who do, rightfully do with zeal.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
