If this They Live remake actually does go through, it’ll be about the fifth or sixth John Carpenter movie to get a do-over. The man’s a living legend and his work’s legendary but, honestly, I think a lot of his movies ended up being better than the sum of their parts while still missing a couple notes to put them totally over. So, despite the kneejerk reaction to this kind of announcement at Deadline, I can’t help thinking that Matt Reeves giving They Live a spin is another (rare?) justified remake.
My main issue with They Live was that it didn’t get outrageous enough (they put Rowdy Roddy Piper in a movie and made him a tacit leading man?) but it’s looking like Reeves’ approach is to take it even further in the opposite direction. He’s talking about a more internal take on the material that draws more faithfully from the original source--Ray Nelson’s short story, “Eight O’Clock in the Morning.” So I guess we shouldn’t expect any X-Ray sunglasses, back alley suplexes or one-liners about kicking ass and chewing bubble gum.
As I mentioned, this would join the likes of Halloween,The Fog, Assault on Precinct 13, The Thing and (sort-of) Dark Star on the ol’ “Carpenter… Remade” list. Pretty much hitting all the major ones have been hit, but are there any other flicks in the man’s filmography that the highly-discerning Screened community thinks could benefit from a remake? Maybe Memoirs of an Invisible Man? Or In the Mouth of Madness?
Just nobody touch Big Trouble in Little China. That’s the perfect one.
Keith David cameo needs to happen, though.
Everything you use as criticisms are the very things that I love about "They Live".
No one can recapture the corny lightning-in-a-bottle of the original, and it makes my teeth hurt just thinking about some tool trying to refilm the Piper/David fist fight. Why a remake, why not a sequel?