The right sunglasses to wear in an alien invasion

Some friends and I were bored, and trying to figure out what fascinating things we should do with our time, when we stumbled across an old movie called “They live”. It was an early Carpenter film from the late eighties. The review said that it was a story about a guy who discovers an alien invasion, which he has to fight off, using a “machine gun and a pair of special sunglasses.”
This sounded so earth staggeringly silly (if that’s a word), we had to see it. How could we miss the opportunity to learn what sort of sunglasses you’d need in case of an invasion from outer space? We like to dress the part, after all.

In the movie, the main character, John, finds a pair of magical sunglasses, which enable him to see the true form of aliens (kinda skeletal with great, big bulging eyeballs) that have dressed up as humans, as well as the subliminal messages they use to control the planet (because they never bothered to read any of the articles on how subliminal advertising doesn’t work).

In a situation such as this, one might think that it would be a good idea to keep a certain degree of discretion. You know, not get caught by they psychotic aliens, and that sort of thing. I’m sure John thought of this. He probably thought long and hard for that whole second it took him to run up to one of the aliens, and tell it exactly how butt ugly he thought it was. Obviously, the alien didn’t take it very well. In fact, he used his special wrist watch (lots of special stuff in this movie) to call all of his alien buddies, who chased poor John up and down the streets for quite a while.

The review also said that John became the reluctant leader of the alien resistance. This was pretty much because everyone else were gunned down, leaving him the only member still standing. And yet, John was the reluctant leader. In the end, the resistance – John, that is – manages to stop the invasion, and the earth is safe, once more.

Strangely enough, this didn’t turn out to be one of those horror films that kept me awake at night.

(Pic by Aaron Logan for www.lightmatter.net)