They Live
Director: John Carpenter
Year Released: 1988
Rating: 1.5
"Rowdy" Roddy Piper, new in town and looking for work, stumbles upon a fringe group out to expose the truth behind society: that we live in a consumerist culture run by aliens (hardly news to me). It's fun B-level action for the first half - that is, before the painful obviousness of it becomes more than apparent and the ho-hums start. Carpenter's never been the most subtle of auteurs, and not even his recycling old sci-fi plotting and effects managed to evoke nostalgia for those classic pictures.
