THEY LIVE again!

by Matt Holmes

Poor old John Carpenter is to be remade again. I say poor, in actual fact I dare say he has made a pretty penny out of the recent slurge of big budget remakes of HALLOWEEN and ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13. Now Universal based Strike Entertainment are betting on his cult 1998 social satire horror THEY LIVE which starred wrestler Rowdy Roddy Piper as being the next Carpenter cash-cow. The Hollywood Reporter say talks are well underway between Universal and the rights owner Les Mougins for the THEY LIVE property. Mougins, an entrepreneur and music mogul holds the rights to Carpenter's PRINCE OF DARKNESS and VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED also as part of a strange deal with Blondie and Alice Cooper!

The original film, part sci-fi thriller and part social satire, told the story of a down-on-his-luck construction worker (Roddy Piper) who discovers glasses that let him see aliens walking among us and controlling humanity. The man races against the clock to find a way to stop them.
The movie was a satire against the falling economy in the U.S. during the late 80's in the world of consumerist greed. Ah, now why you see why it's being remade?

I'm not much of a fan of THEY LIVE. I live the idea and the general message of the movie but I always think artistically, certainly visually, the movie marked the beginning of the end of Carpenter's great run in the movie business. Every film he made after this was disappointing.
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Matt Holmes is the co-founder of What Culture, formerly known as Obsessed With Film. He has been blogging about pop culture and entertainment since 2006 and has written over 10,000 articles.