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THEY LIVE! On Black Friday!
November 24 at 7:30 pm - 10:00 pm
$5 – $15.
Join us on Black Friday for John Carpenter’s Anti-Consumerist Cult Classic! Aliens disguised as humans exploit the earth’s resources while they lull the public into submission through subliminal messages… A working-class loner discovers that only special sunglasses can make the truth visible.
Doors open at 7:30, film begins at 8pm. Popcorn and refreshments included!
They influence our decisions without us knowing it. They numb our senses without us feeling it. They control our lives without us realizing it. They Live. A rugged working-class loner (played by WWF wrestler, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper) stumbles upon a terrifying discovery: goulish creatures are masquerading as humans while they lull the public into submission through subliminal advertising messages. Only special sunglasses can make the deadly truth visible, but can he convince others to open their eyes?
The screenplay was inspired by the 1963 short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning” by Ray Nelson. Enraged by what he saw in Ronald Reagan’s America, filmmaker John Carpenter saw the story as a great premise for a thriller that the world would get to know in 1988 under the sinister name They Live. Dressed in the unassuming garments of a campy B-movie, They Live is a fun sci-fi action comedy about a magnificently mulleted construction worker who battles aliens that seek to exploit all of the earth’s resources by controlling humans with mass media. Beneath the enjoyably cheesy surface is an ingeniously simple and iconic subversive satire that continues to stand out as one of the most memorable and influential counterculture movies of the decade.
“A hilarious sci-fi thriller that skewers the inequality of the neoliberal era and offers an iconic depiction of capitalist ideology. Released shortly before the election of George Bush (Sr), the 1988 film was specifically about Reagan-era brainwashing. There’s a scene featuring an alien pundit on television spouting that it’s “a new morning in America” — evoking the presidential campaign slogan Reagan ran on in 1980 — wedged between vapid and insistent commercial ads representing the consumerist madness of the 1980s, when everyone was urged to run up credit card debt, live beyond their means, and worship wealth.” -Jacobin
