They Live – Film Review

Nada (Roddy Piper), a wanderer without meaning in his life, discovers a pair of sunglasses capable of showing the world the way it truly is. As he walks the streets of Los Angeles, Nada notices that both the media and the government are comprised of subliminal messages meant to keep the population subdued, and that most of the social elite are skull-faced aliens bent on world domination. With this shocking discovery, Nada fights to free humanity from the mind-controlling aliens.

During the first act of John Carpenter‘s They Live, it almost seems as though you’re watching a straight-up drama set within an eerie city and following a man named Nada who gets a job at a construction site and is invited by his new friend Frank to live in a shanty town soup kitchen led by a man named Gilbert. Every so often in this first act, we get glimpses that there is something more sinister lurking under the surface, which, of course, turns out to be true.

They Live is an extremely interesting movie in more ways than one. Yes, the story as a whole is quite interesting, and it’s genius that, in this story, all the man needs to do to see the zombie/alien characters is put on a pair of sunglasses, but it’s also interesting in that it’s hard to determine exactly what kind of film it is. On one hand, it’s a drama about a man who swears he’s seeing strange creatures by putting on glasses.

Then, it almost seems as if it’s a comedy as evidenced by the scene in which our protagonist Nada marches into a building filled with people he believes to be the creatures and proclaims “I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum.” But once the second act comes fully into gear, it becomes clear that They Live is, well, all three of these genres combined. Strangely enough, it never really feels as if there’s a huge tonal clash either.

Yes, in certain moments, it does feel a little confused, but not so much to the point where it loses its focus. It’s a horror-comedy drama and a seriously impressive one at that. The first act is by far the least entertaining as it essentially serves as a setup for the following two acts, but it’s still well directed. After all, it is a Carpenter film. It’s just that, quite simply, there is much more fun to be had later on than earlier on.

Roddy Piper serves as an excellent choice for the role of Nada, who comes across like a complete badass action hero even before he starts gunslinging around town. The first time we see him in the film, he has this look on his face that just tells us exactly the kind of person he is. Piper may as well have just walked on set the way he is and he would have come across as intimidating. He definitely brings all the right physicality to the role.

All of the action and the set pieces are wonderful, especially in the third act, which features an incredibly fun and intense building chase shootout. But, despite this final shootout sequence being great, the overall ending of the film is honestly awful. It goes for a cheap laugh before immediately cutting to black instead of giving us a sense of closure on the story as a whole. Some people won’t be too upset over this abrupt ending if they watch the film only looking for some comedy, but those who actually get deeply invested in the story will likely end up disappointed.

But all in all, They Live is a stylish and wonderfully directed horror-comedy from John Carpenter, featuring an impressive lead performance from Roddy Piper.