p e n g u i n d e v i l

Due to a recommendation from some fellows at the office, well not a recommendation so much as a “I can’t believe that you haven’t seen it”, I went and watched They Live. I’ve never bothered to see it mainly due to how hit and miss John Carpenter is and the sunglasses part of the premise sounded so dumb that I just couldn’t take it. Well, I must say that I am glad that I finally got around to it. I thought it was actually pretty good. Roddy Piper, yes, is no actor. But he plays a down on his luck fellow, new to Los Angeles, who stumbles upon some sunglasses that give him a new, grayscale vision of the world. The notion is that the USA is controlled by aliens who use a mind control signal so that humans see them as humans and so that all of the brainwashing propaganda that is doled out to the public doesn’t appear to them as propaganda. As one might guess, he has a hard time getting anyone to try the glasses on, but that is one of the weakest elements of the film. Face it, how hard would it be to convince someone to put on a pair of sunglasses? There are some strange scenes (including a macho 6 minute fight scene in an alley) where Roddy just can’t get someone to try on these sunglasses. He never actually makes an attempt to convince people, to say “Why don’t you just try them on and see what you can see?”. In one, someone says that regardless of what she sees, she’ll tells him that she’ll see whatever he says he sees. He just gives up there and puts the glasses in his pocket. Doesn’t he realize that regardless of what she said to him, she would believe him if she put them on? Isn’t that his goal? And then when he basically starts punching some guy in the face since he doesn’t want to put the glasses on instead of maybe giving him a reason to put them on… So those scenes are a bit dumb. As he runs around yelling at the aliens he ends up being “framed” as a mass murdering lunatic so the chase is on as he tries to find other humans who know that truth, while avoiding the authorities. The movie is quite cheap, mainly taking place out of doors in the city, and the sunglass idea is dumb. But on the good side, it actually kind of fun. I like its rather slow pacing and not continual action. The score, while a bit odd and repetitive, does make for good, um, atmospherics, and while the sunglasses idea is silly, it is actually done to a nice effect. See, all of our signs and books and magazines are just thought control messages, presented in a nice 1980’s generic groceries type manner which is quite 1984ish. But the people can’t see that, due to the mind control signal. We just see Time, Newsweek, People and all of that. With the glasses on though, you see them as they actually read to our minds.

So there is a good message, albeit presented in a rather blunt and trite manner. It is basically an anti-corporation/consumerism movie. Very bluntly presenting a case that is anti-consumerism, anti-television, anti-conformity and anti-greed. The world is controlled by humanoid aliens who live among us, everything around us is subliminal propaganda and all of it is kept in place via a controlling signal broadcast via TV broadcasting. While everything appears normal, when you put the glasses on, it enables you to see past the signal, and causes headaches at the same time.

As the aliens are basically people with dark corpse-like faces, the idea that all you have to do is spread these sunglasses around to people and they will realize that they are being kept as “livestock” will become apparent. There is a small (and getting smaller) group working against them, trying to get these sunglasses spread around so that people can see the truth and see who is really controlling things and Roddy gets involved with them to try and save the world from these funny aliens.