If I wrote a book about the movies…

Monday is about movies. And sometimes TV. Today, one of my all-time favourite movies ever. And the film I would love to write about in (way) more detail one day…

I’ll start by saying I have no [current] plans to write a book about my movie-watching, or any aspect of cinema, but I’ll quickly add that it is something I have thought about from time to time. If I wrote about cinema, I would want to write a book about They Live. Several books already exist on this topic of course, and many essays and book chapters. And if (when?) I do write about it I’d try to say a whole lot more than the one time so far I’ve committed key-clacks to the internet on the subject.

Movies of My Life # 8: They Live

I think about this film a lot. Maybe, in part at least, because I have an action figure hanging in my TV room. Every day I look at the “female ghoul” character and think about this strange, wonderful, profound movie.

I’m also a John Carpenter fan. So there’s that anyway. And by John Carpenter fan I mean I love both his movies, and his music — and oftentimes, as with They Live, he’s responsible for the film and the soundtrack, both composing and playing…

The only Carpenter film that means more to me in any way, or could even come close, is Halloween — the original; the great little low-budget indie feature that could; the one that created not only one of the most storied horror franchises of all time, but laid the blueprint for modern slashers, arguably created the genre.

But I truly think I love They Live even more so. And mostly because of the weirdness of it, and the surprise of finding it.

Late at night, one night at home, I flicked over channels and saw a guy that looked an awful lot like one of my favourite-ever pro-wrestlers, Rowdy Roddy Piper. Except this version of Piper was wearing jeans and a shirt, and was taking one hell of a beating in a carpark. Hang on! This bloody well was Roddy Piper. There was even some wrestling moves to boot. A suplex! Onto concrete! That should have killed his opponent, stone dead. What the hell was this?

I watched the rest of the film, with no context, and sat in awe of this thing. This film. Whatever the hell it was.

Later, I’d find out a bit more about it, and I’d watch other Roddy Piper movie vehicles (Hell Comes To Frogtown is a particular favourite). But They Live was the one. When I bought a CD of essential Carpenter themes, it had some of the music from They Live. All the links were lined up. Favourite pro-wrestler, favourite filmmaker (and composer). And also exactly the sort of mercurial action/sci-fi film I loved. What genre even was this? All I really knew was it was a dystopian film.

Dystopia is basically my favourite genre. It covers horror, sci-fi, action, some comedies, and many of the best and most compelling documentaries. It covers thrillers and many “in-between” genre or hybrid-genre films. It covers the fucking news these days, let’s face it…

They Live was based on a science fiction story from 1963 called Eight O’Clock In The Morning by Ray Nelson. (*Click that link to read a copy of the story*).

Loosely based, albeit, but I do (also) really like the short story.

I’ve watched They Live a bunch of times over the years, and I both think of it as almost the most compelling (fictional) documentary ever, and something I can’t quite actually work out. That’s why it’s perfect. That’s what drags me back to it. Like Roddy Piper and Keith David dragging themselves through the streets, arguing about sunglasses…

I’d love to keep thinking about this film. And that’s entirely why I think of one day potentially adding to the literature about it.

Have you seen the film? And if so what do you love about it?

And have you ever thought about what aspect of the movies you’d love to write about, if commissioned to write a cinema-related book?