They Live... or do they?

John Carpenter's They Live is one of his best films of the 15 years, and one of his better films in general. It tells the story of a man who drifts from town to town picking up whatever jobs he can find. One day he comes across a pair of sunglasses that essentially allows him to see the world and people the way they truly are. With the glasses on he see on every billboard and on every magazine and newspaper cover, subliminal messages such as, "OBEY" "SUBMIT" "CONSUME "DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY" "DO NOT THINK" and other such mantras. He also notices that not everyone is who they appear to be. In fact, there are those among us who are not even humans at all, but an alien race intent on consuming the earth's resources. These aliens are most the successful people in business and the media. They are the jerks who get the promotions instead of you. He then becomes involved in an underground movement of people who have been awakened to the reality of the world. This film works on a couple of different levels. First, it is an effecitive suspense/paranoia/they're-out-to-get-you film and it works as a (fairly simplistic) social commentary. As typical in Carpenter's films, the villains are mindless and zombie-like, but this time, they're the ones in the positions of power. As a social commentary it seems to be taking a stab at America's consumer driven culture of conformity. I'm not, however, about to say that capitalism is an oppressive system meant to hold people in line and that its creators are aliens. It is a good film however, and is not afraid of its ideas, which may be overly simplified, but refreshing to see coming out of a horror movie. In many ways this reminds me of George Romero's classic, Dawn of the Dead, despite the two films obvious differences, they approach their subject matter in a similar way.