They Live

Posted 28 October 2010 | Movies

They Live is a 1988 science fiction film directed by John Carpenter based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story Eight O’Clock in the Morning.

Part science fiction thriller, part dark comedy, the film echoed contemporary fears of a declining economy, within a culture of greed & conspicuous consumption common among Americans in the 80s. In They Live, the ruling class within the moneyed elite are in fact aliens managing human social affairs through the use of a TV broadcast signal that is concealing their appearance & subliminal messages in mass media.

John Carpenter’s slow & deliberate immersion of the daunting & worrying fable of the corrupt, deceiving & indifferent economic, social & political society, that has wrapped itself around its people who in turn have blindly accepted their fate. Multicultural in more forms than anticipated, are the leading & upwardly mobile alien race who have gelled themselves into the Human psyche & exploited it to its full potential. This is the story of an everyman, a no one, a Nada who stumbles upon their secret, via an underground movement, whose mission is to sabotage their plans & awaken the world to its sinister plot. With the help of a pair of sunglasses that shows the world as it really is, not in color, but a black & white parallel world that the sub-conscious has chosen to ignore. With subliminal messages as “OBEY”, “CONFORM”, “MARRY & REPRODUCE”, “CONSUME”, “WATCH TELEVISION” & “SLEEP”. It is through this thought control that the aliens have this world tied up & neatly packaged for its own manipulative uses, to further themselves at the expense of the meek, mild & lowly sufferers of a jobless & hungry world. This is the battle of self-awareness & one mans struggle with a reality check that has these alien beings staging war against the uprising & rebellious armies from the gutters & streets. They Live You Sleep; where will your consciousness take you when the sleep is washed from your eyes? Welcome to the real world.

They Live

Leave a Reply