Director: Alex Cox
Cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Emilio Estevez, Tracey Walter, Olivia Barash
Have I Seen it Before: Never. It always existed just beyond my radar. Always felt just a little bit grungier than my tastes would normally drift toward. But, once again Circle Cinema could get me to show up for just about anything if it was being projected in 35mm.
Did I Like It: It was simultaneously a shame that I had missed it all this time, and more than a little great that I managed to first catch it in the best available format.
Rare that a movie made after the 1960s would actually serve to inspire John Carpenter and not the other way around, but They Live (1988) might have been a simple alien invasion story without this film’s influences.
And honestly? Do I really want to use this space for a confession? I think this film trucks in a lot of the same iconography and feelings, and does so far more effectively.
Estevez is a more able leading man of the movies than Roddy Piper*. The film views the world of the 80s with the same jaded eye, but manages to offer its both protagonist and the world at large something of a chance at a happy ending. In short, Carpenter’s pitch-black nihilism fills the later film, where whimsy of a sort wins the day here. Then again, there is a fundamental misanthropy here which makes it clear that the people of Earth are the real problems, whereas the aliens might not mean us any intentional harm.
*I wouldn’t take that terribly personally if I were Piper. No wrestler—for all of the skills it takes to engage in that kind of a performance—has ever offered a screen presence equal to even the most nominal of movie actors. Dwayne Johnson might want to take that assessment personally.