Kickass movie and pretty underated. Roddy Piper seems to transition well into the role as much as the Rock does in the movie. I guess because he looks ordinary. Pretty political movie if you tell me abouth them living umongst us, I guess you can say "They" pretty much represents the neocons who controls the businesses and Roddy Piper takes them out

B+/A-

It seems films with a biting satirical message are a bit hit an miss when it comes to financial success.

Starship Troopers - Miss
Robocop - Hit
Idiocracy - Miss

To the miss category can be added "They Live" John Carpenters biting and overlooked attack on 80s consumerism, and this is a real pity because its a great movie that ably mixes the serious with the absurd while rarely mis-stepping.

Roddy Piper is a bit of scenery chewer at points and the Alien creatures passing as humans tend to look like somebody who'd had their faces blasted off with a flamethrower but the main meat of the film focusing on the shallow nature of 80s/western life is well done. I loved the big signs Piper would see whenever he put on those sunglasses and of course it does feature one of the best fight scenes ever.

A hidden gem that should be checked out.

B+

Can't remember much about it except that it was mildly entertaining C+

Fairly entertaining, but pretty dumb and way too heavy-handed with its message. I mean, I have no problem with biting satire, but can you get any more obvious than huge messages all over the city? Not very subtle. The concept of humanity being 'asleep' is an interesting one, but would be done much better a decade later in The Matrix. Roddy Piper does his best Arnold Schwarzenegger, and dissolves from an interesting character to a generic action hero by the end, but has some classic lines ("I have come here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum!") and possibly the best 'fall out of a window' scene ever. There's also an incredibly long and random fight scene between him and Keith David that, while fun to watch, is pretty terribly choreographed - it's obvious they're not hitting each other. It also comes right out of nowhere. By the end, any semblance of a serious satire has been replaced by another generic '80s action flick. A fun watch, but that's about it.

Also, if you guys liked the concept of this film, I suggest reading the Stephen King short story "The Ten O'Clock People". It doesn't have any of the political stuff, but it's a pretty freaky piece of work.

Entertaining, The end of Carpenter's winning streak since breaking into the business, with audiences anyway. Hard to believe this was technically his last hit. Vampires made money other than that.

4 million budget and made about 20 million WW. It's kind of odd that Carpenter never found more success, especially with the Thing only breaking even and Big trouble in Little China being a big disappointment financially, yet are some of the best films of the 80s.

B+ Very interesting film, with one of the best fights of all time. Still it does get hokey at times, thanks to the lower budget and C rate actors. Piper is pretty good though for what he is.

What is it about Carpenter's looks-like-it-was-made-on-the-cheap-even-though-there-was-a-decent-budget aesthetic* that appeals to folks?

I abhor this fanboy mentality that anoints him a genius.


*This description applies more to his other major stuff than it does They Live, but this thread is at the top. It is also not referring to Halloween, which had a budget of 8 dollars and change.

Have you seen The Thing?

The visuals in that are astounding.

Don't tempt the man!!

I'd like to avoid hunting Yoshue down and killing him with a Spoon.

True, true. Don't answer that, yoshue.

I have a copy but have never actually watched The Thing.

I have, however, watched Escape from New York. And LA. And Big Trouble in Little China. And The Fog. And Ghosts of Mars. And on and on. I can only assume most of the budgets go to booze and coke and really dark sunglasses, because mise en scene that poor doesn't just happen accidentally.

Watch it. NOW.

It's easily Carpenter's best film (though I haven't seen all of them) and could be the best horror film ever made.


What about Halloween? I think the acting's pretty bad, but it's fantastically crafted.

Halloween is the exception. As I said, I think it had a budget of about 8 dollars, so there's no shame in looking cheap and rushed. And it's terrifically susenseful.

The fog cost only a million, Escape cost 6 million, and the Thing had some of the most advanced effects at the time, believe the budget was only 10 million.

4 million and 3 million were very cheap for Carpenter considering Big Trouble in Little China cost 25 million.

I'll vouch for the Thing though, its easily in the top 3 horror films ever made.

I'm here to kick ass and chew bubble gum. And I'm all out of bubble gum.

Campy fun. Piper is awesome and Carpenter does a nice job here.

8/10

I guess it's not bad. Fun fantasy and all that, but a bit plodding in terms of actual momentum, not to mention the ludicrous six-minute alley fight. Roddy Piper is as you'd expect a wrestler to be but on the whole likeable. The film is most famous for the bubblegum line and that was the highlight for me. That and the score.

[Evolving the theme to the 2020s...] I suppose I just don't buy the whole allegory of "The Man", that there's a ruling class, a secret 1% pulling the strings to keep the rest of us down and conformist. Now, if it was China then yes, but elsewhere and particularly in the west I believe people just make selfish decisions at all economic levels, and all of those combined becomes a sort of orderly chaos, as opposed to a few having a grand plan implementing it via media, policy, and economics.