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Old 10-17-2018, 02:09 PM
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Sculpt Sculpt is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2013
Location: USA, IL
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They Live (1988)
7/10

It's kind of a Tic-tac candy version of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. You get the initial minty blast, but because there's not much there, you might as well chew it quick and move on with your fresher breath. If you see the film's trailer, you've seen all you need from the entire film. There's enough material for a very cool music video (I read Green Day made a homage video with their song "Back in the USA").

Set in the 1980s, a construction drifter looking for work and place to stay discovers glasses that allows him to see hidden messages in consumer media messages and to see the otherworldly controlling message authors among us. Writer/Director Carpenter says the film "is about yuppies and unrestrained capitalism". The film is based on the 1963 short story "Eight O'Clock in the Morning" by Ray Nelson.

Carpenter uses a simple black and white technique when looking through the glasses, and the special effects and imagery right out of the 1950's sci-fi films which are quite effective and even scary. However after the reveal there's is no further plot or character development, and instead the hero just starts shooting everything, as the film coasts in a campy and rowdy trot to the end. It's too bad Carpenter didn't go more towards the depth of 'The Thing' instead of more towards 'Assault on Precinct 13'.

The film spent two weeks in the top 10, making $13 mil on a $1 mil budget, but ticket sales quickly vanished. As Starlog magazine wrote in 1988, "Carpenter is on record as attributing the film's initial commercial failure to the hypothesis that those 'who go to the movies in vast numbers these days don't want to be enlightened'"; which I would have to consider the pot calling the kettle black.
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Last edited by Sculpt; 10-21-2018 at 04:34 PM.
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