With unforgettable movies like Escape from New York, The Thing, They Live, Halloween and Assault on Precint 13 in his filmography, John Carpenter’s legacy as a supreme writer-director of genre cinema - and being a pretty mean synth score composer as well- is secure. The huge success of last year's Halloween, a direct sequel to his original genre-defining 1978 slasher, and which he executive produced and scored, only confirms how potent his cinematic creations remain. This year sees Deptford Cinema honour the master of cult cinema with a retrospective of his finest films, and included in the line up will be the recent remastered editions of Dark Star, The Fog, The Thing, Escape From New York, Big Trouble in Little China and They Live!
THEY LIVE:
WWF wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper plays John Nada, a homeless, unemployed construction worker who discovers a pair of sunglasses that when worn suddenly reveal a world run by yuppie aliens intent on keeping the human race brainwashed and sedate with subliminal messages fed through advertising and the media. Luckily for us all John Nada is a man of action and so begins the fight-back (including perhaps the longest fistfight in cinema’s history) to save humankind.
The 2018 restoration of They Live was made using the original camera negative which was scanned at 4K resolution in 16bit and we applied the ACES workflow to the restoration process which resulted in the creation of a 4K DCP, UHD version and a new HD version which were produced with the same high technological standards as today's biggest international film releases.
The restoration and new UHD version was colour graded and approved in Los Angeles by the Cinematographer, Gary B. Kibbe (ASC).
dir. John Carpenter
year. 1988
94 min
£6.00 (£4.50 conc.)
Doors 7:30PM
Film 8PM
“You see them on the street. You watch them on TV. You might even vote for one this fall. You think they’re people just like you. You’re wrong. Dead wrong. ”