Consume: John Carpenter’s ‘They Live’ Returns to VHS

VHS is all the rage among collectors here in 2025 – make sure to check your local Walmart for our brand new Terrifier 3 VHS release! – and the next horror movie to get a modern day VHS release is John Carpenter’s They Live, which of course originally hit VHS back in the day.

Indiewire reports that the UK company Vice Press Home Video is bringing 1988’s They Live back to VHS, the next release in a lineup from the company that recently brought films including Evil Dead II and Suspiria back to the not-quite-dead VHS format.

Two different editions will be released by Vice Press. The first, seen above, is the eye-catching “They Live, We Sleep” edition, based on the film’s hidden message imagery and spooled onto white VHS tapes. Indiewire notes in their report that five different white tapes will be sent out, featuring slogans including “Obey,” “Consume,” “Submit,” “Stay Asleep,” and “Watch TV.”

And then there’s the Collector’s Edition, seen below, featuring “a reversible cover, with the front including art by Vice Press Home Video co-founder and artist Matt Ferguson, with the reversible, alternate side including the original key art featuring Roddy Piper.”

You’ll be able to grab They Live on VHS from Vice Press on February 6.

Late pro wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper starred alongside Keith David and Meg Foster in They Live, a still-relevant satire on consumerism that featured Piper as John Nada, a drifter who discovers a pair of black sunglasses that reveal the truth of the world that nobody else can see: the ruling class are literal aliens brainwashing the citizens to consume and obey.

All these years later, its message is as timely as ever…