3 Decades Later, John Carpenter's Masterclass Thriller Still Hits Like a Punch to the Gut

The beauty of science fiction is how cleverly it can hide scathing criticisms of society's ills and biting satire in plain view. Visionaries like Gene Roddenberry and Rod Serling tackled racism, for example, in Star Trek: The Original Series and The Twilight Zone, respectively, through episodes that bypassed the censors of the day, with the message hidden beneath their sci-fi exterior. Others, like Minority Report, are almost chillingly prescient, featuring technologies and events that come to pass well after the movie has abandoned theater screens. And some do both, as is the case with John Carpenter's They Live, a film that throws a critical eye at social hierarchy and foreshadows a world where people are subliminally guided about where to go and what to do in the guise of a beloved cult classic, one that is frighteningly relevant today.