THEY LIVE!

THEY LIVE! is known as one of the greatest cult classics of all time. Written and directed by horror master John Carpenter, the film focuses on a drifter who realizes that aliens have taken over the world. WWF legend Roddy Piper stars as the Drifter referred to as Nada. Nada goes from place to place looking for work until one day he discovers a special pair of sunglasses. These sunglasses reveal to the one using them the truth of the world, ALIENS EXIST! To the naked eye people and advertisements look as they normally do but through the glasses the aliens are exposed and the billboards read messages such as 'Conform,' 'Obey,' and 'Consume.' I think this film would have tied in very well with this weeks topic because it is a perfect example of how a film can fall into different genres. The film can be considered sci-fi thriller, horror, and comedy. There are a lot of underlying themes in this movie as well. One of the main themes takes a shot at the wealthy. When you wear the sunglasses in the film, you can see who's an alien and who's not. Mainly the people who were pretty or had nice things were the aliens and when you put the glasses on they became hideous monsters. The theme that I feel ties in with our class and the media is the subliminal billboards. Like I said, when you wear the glasses you see subliminal messages on the billboards. In the film, it is a control device for the aliens but what I think Carpenter is trying to express is how the media tries to control us, by telling us what to wear, where to eat, what to think, etc. They Live makes you really think a lot about the world around us. SEE IT.