They Live

Nada’s chosen to investigate. He slips inside the church in a framed-in-silhouetted-doorway shot that makes conspicuous reference to the iconic entrances and exits of John Wayne in The Searchers. The image is ostentatiously reinforced at the back end of the sequence. Does this nod to John Ford serve any deeper purpose than reminding us how much John Carpenter likes Westerns in general, and embittered loner heroes in particular? Well, for one thing, Nada’s stumbling onto the fact that there’s a posse in this town. As with Wayne in The Searchers, this is a posse he’ll join, but with reservations, and from which he’ll (typically) end up disaffiliated, riding solo.

Now Nada discovers a reel-to-reel tape recorder, which is being used to create the illusion of a choir of churchy, testifying voices. (Here’s a kind of confession of how film audio and image might be routinely combined to spare low-budget filmmakers the expense of dozens of extras.) It’s worth noting that while the unmasking of ghouls is the film’s primary motif, the first fakers Nada unmasks are playing for the human team. We also see another kind of graffiti, an indoor slogan apparently painted with a narrow paint roller, reinscribing the film’s title within a larger slogan: THEY LIVE, WE SLEEP. Given its location, this bit of advertising can only be for the benefit of those already in the know, a piece of intra-resistance cheerleading, like a coach’s message pinned to the locker-room wall.

Inside the temple, the bearded hacker, Gilbert, and a black conspirator argue over the efficacy of the broadcasts versus other activities generated by their revolutionary cell: “robbing banks,” or “manufacturing Hoffman lenses until we’re blue in the face.” Moments later, the black preacher catches Nada fumbling in the church, after their secrets. He tells our hero that “it’s the revolution,” and, when Nada nervously begs off, assures him, “you’ll be back.” These three—hacker, preacher, and Gilbert—bear secrets: the hacker and preacher eager to share theirs, Gilbert trying to cover his. So, it’s not too shocking to discover that all their secrets are one and the same. But what are Hoffman lenses? And what’s with the fly-by-night chemistry setup? At a glance, it looks like a meth lab. Nada fails to connect it with those cheap-looking plastic sunglasses Gilbert and his cohort don in order to examine the prowling helicopters.

(16:40)