John Carpenter’s cult classic somehow feels even more poignant in our modern political climate.

“Even for sci-fi, the creatures-walk-among-us plot of ‘They Live’ is so old that it ought to be carbon-dated. Oh, sure, director John Carpenter trots out the heavy artillery of sociological context and political implication, but you don’t have to get deep down to realize he hasn’t a clue what to do with it, or the talent to bring it to life.”

The preceding quote is taken directly from the November 5, 1988, review of They Live by Richard Harrington, published in The Washington Post. It’s a sentiment that was found frequently throughout the critique of John Carpenter’s They Live – that it was too heavy-handed, that it was paper-thin. But almost forty years removed from the initial release of the film, after several rounds of critical re-evaluation, They Live is haunting to rewatch, and even more haunting to sit with and think about in 2025. 

They Live follows a homeless man named Nada, played by the late pro-wrestler ‘Rowdy’ Roddy Piper, who arrives in LA looking for a job, for something to pull himself out of the rut he’s in. But what he finds, upon getting a job at a construction site and discovering some sunglasses that show him the truth, is that the entire world is being controlled by aliens who are using subliminal messaging in advertising and media to force people into being docile and submissive, to trick them into taking everything at face value and accepting their control.

In a world where the right is rising and the media seems to wants you to think that all of this is normal, seeing a movie where inhuman monsters are manipulating the media, marketing and our urge toward consumerism really puts into context how long the ruling classes have been doing this. 

Nada decides to burn it all down, killing several of the creatures who try to stop him. But since everybody else can’t see what he can, he’s labeled as a mass murderer, which plays into the aliens’ hands. If nobody is brave enough to approach him, then they won’t be able to find out what he knows.

But because Nada has already made connections with his co-workers, and because he’s so naturally charismatic (that’s what you get when you hire Roddy Piper, I suppose), this just doesn’t work – human connections triumph over the propaganda of the elite.

Piper’s performance here is something I absolutely need to talk about. I think I’m pre-programmed to expect actors who come in from wrestling to be awful, but Piper is incredible. There are a lot of things that transfer between wrestling and acting, but as we’ve seen with The Rock, just because you’re fantastic as a wrestling personality doesn’t mean you’re going to be a fantastic actor. Roddy Piper sells the horror of the situation brilliantly – he lives in a world that isn’t made for him, that has passed him by, and that doesn’t care about him, but he also knows just isn’t right. It’s a sublime piece of acting.

Plus, he has the greatest line in cinema:

“I’m here to chew bubblegum and kick ass… and I’m all out of bubblegum.”

What really sells the horror of the world isn’t Piper’s performance; it’s the performance of his co-star, Keith David. David plays Frank Armitage, a co-worker whom Nada befriends, who has already been brainwashed by the subliminal messaging around him. Through a complex process (Nada beats the shit out of Frank before forcing the glasses onto him), Frank snaps out of it, and sees the world for what it is – David’s performance here really manages to sell a man finding out that everything in his life has been a lie. He’s hesitant to believe, but when presented with undeniable facts, he has no choice. He knows he must do the right thing in a world where very few people know that there’s anything wrong.

From here, Nada and Frank formulate a plan to destroy the device that is disguising the aliens from humanity – if they can stop the signal that it’s broadcasting, then the regime will be revealed for what it really is. They’re joined by a woman called Holly, played by Meg Foster, in a turn that really fools you into thinking she’s one of the good guys, before the other penny drops towards the end of the movie and you realize she has been completely indoctrinated by the regime. Nada comes across her by accident and accidentally leaves a pair of his sunglasses, which she uses to discover the truth.

Carpenter does a wonderful job throughout this portion of the movie of showing how utterly insurmountable taking on the status quo can be. It’s not easy to fight against the rest of society when that society has been brainwashed to be obedient thralls, but Nada and Frank have no choice – they can’t lie to themselves anymore, and they can’t just live quietly while others suffer. They have to do something, and you can see through Carpenter’s direction how torn Frank is here – on the one hand, he’s now seen the truth. But on the other hand, his chances of surviving this aren’t high, and doing the right thing could cost him everything. The way David plays Frank’s response to the reveal is with a mixture of horror and shock, which also makes everything feel more real. He doesn’t know what to do in this situation, so he goes with his moral compass and follows Nada.

It’s here that Holly reveals her true colors as an agent of the alien overlords. She kills Frank in cold blood before attempting to stop Nada, who has climbed to the top of the broadcasting station and is now on the roof of the building. Nada shoots Holly after she kills Frank before he destroys the device, which detonates. This is an act of suicide on Nada’s part – he knew he wasn’t making it off this roof, and that destroying the machine would kill him, but it’s the right thing to do. With his dying breath, he raises a finger to the regime that held him down and shoved him aside.

Change doesn’t happen without sacrifice. The world cannot be a brighter place without people willing to be the spark that ignites the fire. Maybe it’s all futile. But isn’t it worth trying? Isn’t it worth finding out what a better world might look like? 

In an age where information is used against us, where we’re desperately instructed not to trust our neighbors, we need to be willing to find that spark inside ourselves. We don’t need to die to be that spark, but we need to be willing to sacrifice something so we can stay awake and aware. After all, they live while we sleep.