Lifeforce

I saw Lifeforce when it originally came out in theaters and was captivated by the beauty of Mathilda May, the lead vampire. This is a must-have for my collection.

People often discuss this epic film for its nudity (and not much else) and I consider that a shame. It’s excellent, features strong acting and an elaborate story, and including great concepts and special effects. I’d recommend it to all horror fans, new and old, critical and horror-hound alike.Director Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, TCM Part 2, Poltergeist, Funhouse) is a horror master! Many know of Steven Spielberg’s heavy-handed involvement in Poltergeist and thus question Hooper’s contribution as a director. True. Spielberg is awesome and the family-urgency was likely a product of his influence. But have these Poltergeist nay-sayers even seen Lifeforce!?!?! Get ready for an AMAZING experience!An investigative space mission is graced with the discovery of the millennium! The astronauts unexpectedly encounter a 150-mile-long space vessel during an exploratory mission of Hailey’s Comet. The influence of H. R. Giger is undeniable as the vessel’s interior has an organic motif, as if the explorers were entering the anatomy (even the womb) of a leviathan being—much as in Poltergeist (1982; late in the film) or Alien/Aliens (1979, 1986). The spaceship’s inhabitants are all deceased, and they resemble bat people. You may be thinking “Are we really only 6 minutes into the running time?” The answer is YES. This film has a LOT to offer and it wastes none of your time!While most of the bat-like inhabitants are long dead, the explorers find three preserved, naked, uncannily human lifeforms in stasis chambers—two men, and a woman. Then…something mysterious happens and the mission returns home with zero contact for thirty days. So what happened on that ship that returned with no living crew members? It’s not as obvious as you may think.It’s not until mid-story that Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback; Alligator II: The Mutation, Barb Wire, Ed Gein), who was on the original exploratory mission, is recovered as the sole mission survivor in an escape pod to inform the military that an alien vessel was encountered...and what happened on that ship. He comes back a changed man, and the only hope of hunting down the escaped female who is now wandering the streets of London and draining its inhabitants.Our interstellar succubus (Mathilda May; The Jackal) is beyond stunning, supernaturally manipulative, and clearly is on some sort of life-draining mission of her own. Her abilities infect our sexual weaknesses as well as our subconscious desires. So much so that a grown man might feel compelled to kiss Patrick Stewart (Green Room, Dune).For 1985 the special effects are fantastic!!! Utilizing Star Wars-like rotoscoping for space scenes and Ghostbusters-style ectoplasm for supernatural life-sucking effects, you almost forget this film is over 30 years old. The life-drained bodies are desiccated husks and the zombie-esque animatronics of their movement is impressive.Not only are the effects genuinely fantastic, but the concepts are as well. Classical vampire notions like the charming gaze, life-draining, telepathic links, and shapeshifting are clearly present, although cleverly modified. When the astronauts first enter the alien spaceship, it feels “strangely familiar” and when Tom sees the preserved female (Mathilda May) he seems to be entranced. And one can’t argue here, Mathilda May has entrancing boobs and a serious enthusiasm for kissing. Most men would be powerless.The first 20 minutes of this film are more substantial than most entire horror films. I know…you’re thinking “really, John, but all the nudity.” But you’d be wrong. This film remains something special even if there was not a nipple to be seen.Most interesting to me is how this 1985 movie, in the early HIV/AIDS era, captured the raw pansexuality of the vampire. Much as Anne Rice’s Lestat, even a withered male husk can allure another man to his charm. Although the “kiss” is admittedly more distant when male-to-male than when Mathilda tongue-wrangles her drained prey, infectious male-male kissing (or, at least, its implication) is quite frequent. It seems that Hellraiser (1987) and Hellbound (1988) were influenced by the exquisite life-draining effects, which set the bar high.The final segment erupts into an epidemic owing much to Dawn of the Dead (1978), with London immersed in a contagious essence-feeding maelstrom. The effects are consistently high quality and the bat monster is awesome, but the gore doesn’t properly kick in until this third act.Is this movie a work of film art? No. Is it an amazing horror film? YES! Does it have its fair share of heavy exposition? Sure. Do I care? Not at all! They deliver it well and in plausible context.This excellent horror film has my 100% backing. I may have fallen in love with it as a teenager (understandably for the boobs, at that age), but now I would love it if there were not a single nipple to boast. This film is smart, oddly elaborate without getting carried away with itself, and 96% serious in its delivery. Unusual in many respects, and noteworthy in more, this is not the film to miss.

Let’s just get the important stuff out of the way first. Even though it’s juvenile and tasteless and shallow of this reviewer to say so, “Lifeforce” must have been the apogee, the acme, the apex of mid-1980’s sci-fi exploitation gratuitous nudity. There, I’ve said it. Just that one fact makes this movie a glittering gem of its genre. Mathilda May is magnificent! She’s the entire reason “Lifeforce” is a cult classic, why it’s still watched decades later.For full-frontal Brazilian unabashed exploitation scenes, Ms. May’s extended (like twenty minutes worth) of unadorned reclining and upright acting puts “Lifeforce” head, shoulders and other parts above other space fantasy pictures. Top this, George Lucas! In your face, Star Trek! “Interstellar” has nothing on this.As for the rest of this oddly enjoyable mess, well, what do you expect of a movie made from a novel titled “Space Vampires”?Space vampires, of course. And we get ‘em! Three of them, in fact, although the two naked guy vampires get a lot less screen time than Ms. May, and a lot of effort and camera angles had to be taken to keep them fig-leafed.So! A British space shuttle rendezvous with Halley’s Comet discovers a larger than average alien spaceship hovering in the coma. Astronauts wearing Union Jacks enter a space tunnel. Remember the huge alien vajayjay that the Nostromo crew clambered into, way back in “Alien”? Well, the “Lifeforce” ship gets even deeper into the whole, ahem, business. This is one roomy introitus! The Space Captain hilariously muses that he feels like he’s “been here before”. Cap’n, we all have. Unless we were born by C-section, I mean. With spacesuits and MMUs, we traverse this dark and rugose canal in a sort of reverse-birth, and find ourselves in a space uterus. And a spacious one it is! Full of bats, and who hasn’t had that problem? The Captain takes a fallopian wrong turn and what does he encounter in the next room? Three naked beautiful space vampires in glass boxes, as if one needed to ask.Now let’s say right here that the John Dykstra special effects in the space parts are excellent! The space suits, complete with MMU’s, are first rate, and the wire work simulating microgravity is pretty darn good. I’ve seen worse effects in more expensive movies. And the interior of the Euroshuttle is very nice indeed. Good work, Dykstra! These suits are better than Kubrick had for “2001”.A kind of somber note: when the now-derelict Euroshuttle reaches earth, the NASA shuttle sent up to dock with it is the Columbia. Little did we know in 1985, right?Moving on to the outbreak of space vampirism in London, there are lovely practical effects again, with fires, collapsing buildings, a whole model of the city going up in flames, culminating in the explosion of St. Paul’s. Looks great, too. The only off-note would be the blue wisps of the space vampires’ soul-sucking vapor flowing through the sky. This looks like it might have been done on an Atari home computer. And in 1985, it might have been. But the models are entirely likable, especially for an inexpensive epic like this.Except maybe the giant space umbrella ship, which looks frankly ridiculous. But no matter, because we’ve got Patrick Stewart! Jean Luc Picard himself, as the head shrink at the loony bin. He’s great, hasn’t shaved his head yet, and after a lot of shouting and carrying on, Stewart has one of the coolest and goriest death scenes in a movie full of them.Directed by Tobe Hooper, the putative maker of “Poltergeist”, but more importantly, written by Dan O’Bannon. O’Bannon, of course, made the superb “Return of the Living Dead.” There are plenty of ROTLD riffs in “Lifeforce”, too. Extensive but appreciated nudity, in both pictures, for example. The animated and emaciated corpses could also plug into either movie. More of them in “Lifeforce” but excellent in both films. Detached but still lively severed limbs. Streets full of marauding high-speed zombies. The idea that the best way to deal with outbreaks like this might be the thermonuclear option. ROTLD is funnier, but “Lifeforce” has its moments.But also plenty of uniquely British tropes. The Man from the Ministry, for example, who never has a clue what they’re dealing with. The calm, cool, collected scientist who does. In this case, he’s a “thanatologist”, which sounds like what I should have majored in. As is de rigueur for these movies, he’s got that Dr. Who/Quatermass thing going, and he happens to own a “leaded iron” sword which is just the ticket when you’ve got vampire trouble.A hot-headed ultra-competent SAS officer. And the Space Captain, who’s telepathically linked to the hot naked vampire woman. Which moves the plot along, saving a lot of investigating and stuff. Crowds in the Tube, London cabs, the P.M.’s War Room, it’s all so English!“Lifeforce” is oddly long; I see on IMDB that cuts have been up to 128 minutes, and there are scenes that just go on and on to no particular effect. Lengthy meetings are held, long, long helicopter rides are taken (real helicopter, courtesy of the MOD!) and the Royal Grenadiers mill about to little effect.Thrillers like this used to fit into about an hour and a half. Hammer Films used to raise Dracula from the grave, have him bite a half-dozen heaving bosoms and get the Count staked again in like 88 minutes. So the extended length feels sort of strange, with the actors running in place until something more interesting happens. But enough does happen to keep us interested, in hope that Mathilda May will get nekkid again (hint: she does).Taken for what it is, “Lifeforce” is entertaining trash. This is not thought-provoking or intelligent or meaningful. We’ve got “Arrival” or “Annihilation” for that intellectual stuff. Nope, this is unpretentious hot naked space babes, and I like that.

Awesome movie

For special effects and production, I'd give this film an A. The acting was convincing though the nudity detracted from the film. Sadly in keeping with the Hollywood "standard" of today, sex sells, it has its share of it. I saw this year's ago and was impressed with the plot. Outer space vampires take over Earth. As a writer of dark fantasy, I tend to go for the underdogs in speculative fiction. I'm thinking that this might well fit into its own sub genre of dark science fiction. Very few films can technically fall into that category. This ISN'T a family oriented film. If you've got a family, please exercise viwer discretion. If you like films or literature that aren't pigeonholed into one nice little category, you might like this "thinking outside the box" film. This edition has both the theatrical and extended director's releases. It's an interesting addition to a 4k bluray combo collector's video library. I'm certain it'll be a sell out. This is one of those films that makes you go hmmm. . .

I'm a huge sify fan. Wasn't disappointed. Bought this on a recommendation from a movie review channel youtube ch. (Good bad flicks)

aún con el paso de los años esta película mantiene la originalidad de su relato

偶然、新品で3,000円以下で売っているのを見つけて即、BD(STEEL BOOK)を購入。ディレクターズカットと劇場版、各1枚入っていました。以前、スターチャンネルＢＳ放送が日本語字幕版で放映したときにＢＤに録画しましたが、それよりも高精細で鮮明な画質です。海外版で言語は字幕も英語だけです。

This is one of those bad movies that I find endlessly watchable. I guess I just like space life energy vampires.

I waited to late to get a decent deal on this collectors edition and ended up spending $29 U.S. to get this shipped but after I finally watched all the special Shout Factory interviews and documentaries in this package it took the sting out of my purchase. Now Shout Factory is selling a lesser version of the collectors series that has none of those extra's which is good for some people but if you can find a copy of Life Force Collector's Edition buy it, it's worth the extra cost just to watch the interviews of cast & crew. Video quality is a solid 4 our of 5 stars.. Audio is 5 out of 5 it's really busy and will envelope you in uni-directional sounds. Extra's are excellent 5 out of 5 and the packaging is sharp to round things off. This film is an oddity by Tobe Hooper but even today after all these years it does not look dated and the plot moves along nicely and if you by chance come across this collectors edition (it will say it on the front cover) buy it and dive into the extra's the beautiful Mathilda May awaits you to suck your soul dry!

This movie is light years ahead of it's time great movie.