They Live (1988)

John Carpenter directed the campy 1988 They Live. Carpenter’s other notable works are: Halloween, Christine and Escape from New York ttp://www.theofficialjohncarpenter.com/pages/themovies/tl/tl.html.
They Live is a commentary on America’s naivety and numbness to what is happening in the world, city and their neighborhood.

The main character Nada played by wrestler Roddy Piper is befriended by Frank played by Keith David, where they discover a world that is trying to “annihilate the consciousness” http://us.imdb.com/title/tt0096256/. The window to this world is only detectable when you wear Ray Ban knock-off sunglasses. When viewing the world through these glasses you see your environment in black & white with billboards noting commands OBEY, CONSUME, BUY, MARRY AND REPRODUCE, WATCH T.V., CONFORM, NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT and SUBMIT. The alien creatures disguised as upstanding citizens, have burned-looking face with huge silver eyes.

Nada takes it upon himself to awaken the public consciousness regarding this underground society before they take over the earth. They Live brings us memorable movie quotes from Nada such as, “Life's a bitch, and she's back in heat!” and “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum.”

Many events happened in 1988 during the Reaganomics era. Such as, how were we to know that in 1988 Saudi-born Osama bin Laden founded al Qaeda, the base, an operational hub for terrorist activities http://timelines.ws/20thcent/1988.HTML and Roseanne was the top ranking network show on television for two seasons.

The movie is an interesting concept and makes us want to question whom our friends & neighbors and fight authority. The special effects are straightforward and work just fine in this movie.