It was a long, hard process, figuring out which film I wanted to start off with, and They Live is one of the few John Carpenter films I haven't seen. Now I know this isn't a horror movie in the strictest sense, but it's got aliens, mind control and shotguns so I say it counts.
Like I said, I had never seen They Live before tonight. I didn't even know that much about it, except it's where Duke Nukem got one of his more famous line. The plot is this; a drifter comes to LA, finds magic sunglasses that reveal a huge extradimensional conspiracy to take over the world and brainwash all of humanity, and then kicks alien ass. It's not that well acted, and the script is not one of Carpenter's finest moments. Much of the dialogue is awkward and the pacing is wonky. The movie drags on and on for most of the first hour, and only picks up steam once Rowdy Roddy Piper gets the sunglasses. The scene where he slowly puts everything together and gets angrier and angrier and starts antagonizing the aliens is amazing. Then again, that may just be because I'm a sucker for the juxtaposition of black and white with colour.
The movie also gets points for having Keith David. He could read the phone book and make it sound badass. Mostly because it would just sound like a list of people he was going to kill. His first shot has him wearing a pink wife beater and he's still pulls it off. Roddy Piper doesn't quite embarrass himself, though I'll always wonder what could have happened if Kurt Russell was in his role. John Carpenter and Kurt Russell were the best director/actor team since Kurosawa and Mifune. But I'm getting away from myself. The lack of a strong female lead also didn't do the movie any favours. That said, the fight between the leads was one of the greatest hand to hand fights I've ever seen. It just kept going and going, until each man was barely able to stand. Then it kept going for another 5 minutes. Awesome.
Also, while I heard that this movie had aged rather badly which I don't quite understand. The whole divide between the rich and poor and the disappearing middle class seemed almost painfully topical and obvious. It's like John Carpenter predicted all of this ages ago. Though I guess better this coming true than Prince of Darkness.
All in all, They Live was a fun, but very flawed movie that should be seen. It's no Thing, or Assault on Precinct 13, but lesser Carpenter is still better and more original than pretty much anything else out there.
Tomorrow, my personal second favourite of the recent French Horror New Wave.
NOTE: My official blog is not quite up and running yet. I didn't want to delay the start of this, so for the meantime I will be posting my reviews on Facebook and my temporary blog here. interiorityentertainment.blogspot.com
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment