They Live1988
“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they're people just like you. You're wrong. Dead wrong.”
Directed by John Carpenter
On the charts
🏆 4 nominations total
The premise
A lone drifter stumbles upon a unique pair of sunglasses that reveal aliens are systematically gaining control of the Earth by masquerading as humans and lulling the public into submission.
Horror Vault's take
A drifter scraping by on the margins of Reagan-era Los Angeles makes a discovery that reframes everything he thought he knew about society and the people running it. Armed with nothing but a pair of ordinary-looking sunglasses and a growing sense of rage, he finds himself pulled into a conspiracy far larger and more deeply rooted than he could have imagined. John Carpenter's razor-sharp genre hybrid wraps genuine sociopolitical fury inside a gloriously scrappy sci-fi action shell. The result is one of horror cinema's most enduring cult objects — equal parts brawl and broadside.
Content: Violence, Fist Fighting, Gun Violence, Alien Creature Imagery
Cast
Roddy Piper
John Nada
Keith David
Frank Armitage
Meg Foster
Holly Thompsen
George Buck Flower
Drifter
Peter Jason
Gilbert
Raymond St. Jacques
Street Preacher
Jason Robards III
Family Man
John Lawrence
Bearded Man
Susan Barnes
Brown Haired Woman
Sy Richardson
Black Revolutionary
Wendy Brainard
Family Man's Daughter
Lucille Meredith
Female Interviewer
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