23.10.24, 20:30, They Live (1988)

America may vote on 5 November, but true conspiracy connoisseurs know that the battle for democracy has long since been lost.

In this testosterone-fuelled terror dream by cult master John Carpenter, aliens control the world order while humanity slowly consumes itself to death. Fortunately, there is John Nada, a nobody with chronic gum deficiency and an excess of muscle. When John finds a special pair of sunglasses, he is able to see through the ideological haze and blast his way to freedom.

This sample of eighties action pulp hits the nail in the coffin of neoliberal America. After draining the working class for two terms, Ronald Reagan left behind a country where just about all social services had been dismantled or privatised. Carpenter taps into the dystopian tensions and populist paradoxes of his time to forge new myths. However, those who see in They Live a political pamphlet would do well to put on a different pair of glasses. The imagery, genre games and macho one-liners are such an idiosyncratic mess that both sides of the political spectrum felt addressed at the time. So put on your Weird Wednesday bib for a blast from this ‘trash can of ideology’.