Schlocktoberfest XVI – Day 9: They Live (1988)

They Live (1988)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: More shit that’s gonna creep you out because it’s really starting to happen.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

The Prophecies of John Carpenter are still getting a little too on the nose.
This movie came about about a month after I got my driver’s license and I remember wanting to go see it in the theaters. I never did, saw it on cable. The end.
Carpenter’s opening credits have a little more panache this time out.
Fucking Roddy Piper man. RIP.
Good to know that the Lucky Strike throat on that rotten social worker will eventually kill her.
Even in a movie that satires the 80’s, the construction scene looks like a Gatorade ad from ’83.
From what I’ve seen, LA looks like this almost all of the time.
This is one helluva downer speech.
MARRY AND REPRODUCE.
It’s a rule you have to play harmonica if you’re homeless.
Do illegal transmissions still have old school VHS static on them?
I used to go to a flea market that looked a lot like this compound.
BUY.
Piper has stumbled on to what looks like a Breaking Bad lab that makes bootleg Ray-Bans instead of Blue Persuasion.
If you didn’t guess that the choir singing coming from that odd looking church was being played on a tape through speakers as an act of subterfuge, well then I don’t really know what to say to you.
The lighting in this scene made it look like Piper had a nose bleed.
I think this is Buck Flower’s most verbose cameo in a Carpenter film.
CONSUME.
There’s always a Police raid when you really don’t want one.
I’ll say it again – it’s hilarious how these shit times are making all of these old movies prophetic.
You wanna act in a JC movie? You better be a night owl.
This is no time for small blonde sidekicks Roddy, even if they are boys.
I’m waiting to see a commercial for “The Stuff”
Has anyone in an inner city ever reached into a full garbage can and have it be completely dry?
Subliminal advertising? No one reads this fucking site. Never!
Why are there never any pop-up stores that go with all-white no frills They Live merch? That would be so kick ass looking if the stores were painted black and white too. With the people who worked there in black and white alien makeup…Never mind. Sorry.
OBEY.
I bet even that powerful alien transmitter couldn’t break my insomnia.
All Yuppies are aliens. We thought that in 1982 to be honest.
“It figures it’d be something like this.” I’ve been saying that almost every morning for the past ten years now.
Worst fucking LA cop ever. And that is saying a lot.
Piper with the clothesline!
Those bastards do indeed die like we do.
The Aliens’ Rolexes can make them Nightcrawler away the second they feel the heat coming from around the corner. See, I can still Dennis Miller the fuck out of a joke with a movie and a comic book reference in the same sentence.
DO NOT QUESTION AUTHORITY.
JC even saw surveillance drones thirty five years before their time.
JC wanted to film Meg Foster walking to her parked car and by King Charles he sure did.
Meg Foster’s legendary ice blue eyes are making mine water for some reason. I swear they’re the color of half sucked Vicks cough drops. I can almost smell the eucalyptus.
Or I could just need a humidifier in this room.
This is the oddest god damn kidnapping I have ever seen, and let me tell you I’ve seen a few.
Bogey and Bacall these two are not.
TELL 10,000 PEOPLE TO READ THIS BLOG
This scene is just not working at all. More of that aforementioned padding I guess?
You don’t see too many well stocked wet bars in living rooms anymore. At least not since Mad Men ended.
She just happens to work for the cable company. Oh shit.
Long drawn-out boring scene with a huge fucking stunt to end it and wake you up. JC knows what he’s doing folks.
The news reports had to use an old WWF promo shot for Piper’s mug shot.
Is calling it the WWF dead-naming it?
NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT.
Hilarious. Unless you’re on the Death Star, whenever you fall in garbage it’s always bone dry and consists of nothing but paper.
Let us all pause for a bit to watch one of the greatest fight scenes ever put on film…
Anybody else wanna see a corner run bulldog?
“Life’s a bitch and she’s back in heat.” This movie talks in 80’s taglines.
This men’s hotel scene is a little homoerotic, you’re not imagining things.
Makes ya think – maybe global warming is just some aliens xeno-forming our planet for their species.
Holly just happens to show up at this resistance meeting. C’mon.
Of course ICE shows top and fucking kills just about everyone.
Thank Crom the Stormtroopers never shot this good. Would have been a quick trilogy.
Jaime Lee should have been the voice of the Alien help hotline, just to keep the streak going.
The aliens say they’ll conquer us by 2025. Well done lads, and well-played.
That looks like the exact same transportation system used in “Space Quest”.
WATCH T.V.
Imagine the 1% is in fact helping with alien colonization. Mulder always did.
Walking around the office carrying M16’s – only in America.
I haven’t seen this much attention paid to a building’s rooftop since that thing at Nakatomi Plaza. If you know, you know.
SYDNEY SWEENEY IS A BUTTER-FACE. ADMIT IT.
He still can’t see that Holly is the villain here. Damn those icy blue arctic ocean color of Cool Mint Listerine eyes of yours Meg Foster. Damn them to Hell.
There goes David Keith David.
Piper destroys the satellite, kills Holly, dies flipping the aliens off, and wakes the planet up from the alien hypnosis.
There was never a more John Carpenter ending than that.
STAY ASLEEP.

What year?: Not really said. Present day as it was I guess, so 1988.

Who are the Enemies?: Aliens really into conformity.

What Happened to the Earth?: I think it has something to do with the aforementioned aliens.

Final Thoughts: Another Carpenter epic that’s a little slower the older you get. There are some great moments besides the alley fight of course, a lot actually, but the in between padding is a lot fluffier. That said, there will never be a time where I would not be ready to chew bubble gum and kick ass with The Pipes. Never.

Was It Entertaining: