They Live

In THEY LIVE, an unemployed man (Roddy Piper) arrives in Los Angeles looking for work. He stays at an encampment for homeless people, where he begins to notice strange goings-on. On the television, programming is frequently interrupted by a man who has jammed the signal, imploring everyone to "Wake up." At the church across the street, he witnesses furtive middle-of-the-night activity. After police destroy the encampment and the church, the man returns to find a box filled with sunglasses. He puts the sunglasses on and immediately sees skull-faced aliens where before he saw people and messages such as "Consume," "Obey," and "Stay Asleep" where he once saw advertisements. He immediately goes on a rampage, trying to stop the aliens, informing everyone that "I'm here to chew bubble gum and kick ass, and I'm all out of bubble gum." He finds those who ran the homeless encampment -- who are also the leaders of the resistance -- and they tell him that the aliens see Earth as a "developing planet," one they can exploit for their own foul ends. It's up to this man -- known only as "Nada" in the film credits -- to find a way to jam the signal that's lulling everyone into false complacency and thus show everyone what he sees through his special sunglasses.