It's a new tradition in our family to kick off the Halloween season with a trip to Lexington, Kentucky to attend ScareFest, the annual horror and paranormal convention hosted by Patti Starr. We've anxiously been watching as the list of celebrity guests grows each week, and we recently noticed that Meg Foster had recently been added. As my boyfriend was reading me the names, I had no idea who she was, so he explained that she was the lead female role in the movie, They Live.
My boyfriend was quite shocked when I told him that I had never seen it. Now, I was familiar with the plot and could definitely recognize the iconic 'Obey' imagery as being from the film, but I had just never sat and watched the whole thing from start to finish. So, we had to fix that and I may now have a new favorite movie. The 1988 film starring Roddy Piper, Meg Foster, and Keith David was, like I said, pretty funny...but pretty darn scary when taken in context of what's going on in today's political world, lol.
SPOILER ALERT
If you aren't familiar with the plot, the basic idea is that Roddy Piper's character is a drifter who comes into the city looking for work. He lucks into a construction job, despite the fact that the economy has apparently taken a turn for the worse in this slightly futuristic? world. A fellow worker takes him to a tent city establishment to stay the night, where he soon notices some strange activity at a church across the street and does some investigating. When the makeshift camp area and church are later raided, he gets away. Returning the next day, he finds that the hidden boxes of what appear to be normal sunglasses are still at the church.
Putting on the glasses, the world takes on a very different appearance. There's an epic fight scene, a chick with the strangest eyes you've ever seen (Meg Foster), and lots of creepy zombie/skeletal looking people with magic watches. I'm not sure if the ending was necessarily a happy, or even resolved ending, but the 'good guys' accomplished what they set out to do and everyone starts to wake up from the manufactured reality created for them.
As I said, I surprisingly really liked this movie. I know its not the greatest movie out there, but there were some scenes in it that were fantastic. The overall message, while presented in a comical way, is actually pretty poignant. While we might not be under alien control, I think its a fair assessment to say that many people today are 'asleep' in some way or another, oblivious to what is going on around them. And, even though she scares me a little bit, I can't wait to meet Meg at this year's ScareFest!
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