Episode 38
They Live, We Sleep...On John Carpenter's 'They Live'
August 12th, 2026
1 hr 51 mins 2 secs
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About this Episode
John Carpenter is an American filmmaker, composer, and actor, most commonly associated with horror, action, and science fiction films of the 1970s and 1980s. In this episode we discuss his 1988 cult classic and much-memed sci-fi horror film, They Live.
The film They Live is based on Ray Nelson’s 1963 short story, Eight O’Clock in the Morning, and despite the low budget, dubious acting and general cheesiness, is fertile ground for chats about how to see through the ideology of our ruling capitalist overlords.
In this discussion, we draw heavily upon Sophie Fiennes & Slavoj Zizek’s documentary film, A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology, in which Zizek analyses the film, They Live.
We also find time to discuss psychosis, aliens, conspiracies, exploitation of the masses, and even whether there is any way to ethically pressure someone into a psychedelic experience.
And for those of you who are wondering what this film has to do with altered states, take into consideration that the sunglasses that hulking protagonist Nada dons were made using ‘Hoffman’ Lenses…
References
- John Carpenter (1988) They Live
- Behind the scenes of ‘They Live’: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yhkofGlIj4k&pp=0gcJCWQCo7VqN5tD&ra=m
- Ray Nelson (1963) Eight O’Clock in the Morning
- Susan Green — Fiendish Slumber Party: A Movie About Perpetual Shut-Eye
- The Wachowski’s (1999) The Matrix
- Rage Against the Machine — ‘Down Rodeo’ — Evil Empire (1996)
- For the full version of Tobias’ ayahuasca experience, listen here: Altered Mates — Episode 18 — Coming out of the psychedelic closet
- Sophie Fiennes & Slavoj Zizek — They Live Clip from A Pervert’s Guide to Ideology (2012)
- Altered Mates — Episode 34 — ‘Your scientific illiteracy makes me shudder!’ on The X-Files: Jose Chung’s From Outer Space
Links
Altered Mates Substack
Altered Mates Patreon
Music for the show by Si Mulumby
A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama