John Carpenter’s “They Live” is thrilling despite limited special effects because it exploits our social imagination.
Its scariest scenes consist of seeming strangers secretly communicating with one another. The stuff of paranoia.
We recognize threats to our body visually. Threats to our identity are socially coded.
Carpenter’s movies – including “The Thing”, “Halloween” and “Escape From New York” – draw us into madness and are all the scarier for it.
We can’t imagine what dismemberment feels like but we’ve always already known the terror of losing our selves.