they live (1988)

a 1988 american science fiction action horror film written, directed, and scored by john carpenter, starring roddy piper, keith david, and meg foster. based on the 1963 short story “eight o’clock in the morning” by ray nelson. set in los angeles, it follows a working-class drifter who discovers that the ruling class are camouflaged aliens and goes on a quest to expose them to the world.

carpenter wrote the screenplay under the pseudonym “frank armitage” and has said the film’s themes came from his frustration with reaganomics and the commercialization of popular culture and politics. they live was released by universal pictures on november 4, 1988, debuted at number one at the north american box office, and initially got negative reviews before building a cult following. it’s now regarded as one of carpenter’s best films and has had a lasting influence on street art, particularly the work of shepard fairey.

what the film does

nada, a homeless drifter, arrives in los angeles looking for work. he finds a construction job and befriends frank, a coworker who invites him to a shantytown near a church. after a hacker hijacks tv broadcasts warning that “they” control humanity, nada follows the church’s preacher inside and discovers a resistance group. police raid the settlement and destroy the church.

nada retrieves a box from the wreckage containing sunglasses that reveal the world in black and white, with subliminal messages on billboards, magazines, and money telling people to obey, consume, and conform. the glasses also reveal that many people, including police, politicians, and media figures, are actually decaying skull-faced aliens wearing human disguises. when aliens at a supermarket realize nada can see them, he kills two alien cops, storms a bank full of aliens, and escapes by taking a human woman named holly hostage.

nada tries to convince frank to put on the glasses. frank refuses, and the two fight in a long, brutal alley brawl that carpenter modeled on the john wayne-victor mclaglen fight in the quiet man (1952). nada eventually forces the glasses on frank, who sees the truth. they join the human resistance and get contact lenses that do the same thing as the glasses. they learn the aliens are using global warming to terraform earth and a signal from cable 54, the alien tv network, to keep humans from seeing them.

holly turns out to be a collaborator. she leads the police to the resistance meeting and later kills frank inside the alien broadcast facility under cable 54. nada kills holly, destroys the transmitter on the roof, and is fatally shot by a police helicopter. as he dies, he gives them the middle finger. with the signal gone, humans around the world see the aliens for what they are.

criterion 4

they live does something no political satire before or since has pulled off: it dresses a full-throated critique of consumer capitalism, authoritarian policing, and media mind control in the clothes of a rowdy piper action film, and the disguise makes the argument more effective, not less. the sunglasses reveal the world as it is, and the film itself is a pair of sunglasses.