LIFEFORCE

 

Lifeforce Movie Review

A spacecraft in charge of observing Halley's Comet comes across three human-looking space vampires...yes, you read that right. The creatures are brought to Earth, and, of course, chaos ensues. Meanwhile, Col. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback) seems to be falling for the female vampire, credited simply as "Space Girl" (Mathilda May)--she spends much of the first thirty minutes of the movie walking around naked and killing people.

This is all you're getting here

This 1985 film, directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre), was a disaster in just about every way possible upon release--it bombed in the box office, was panned by critics, and chopped up by editors. The movie can now be found in the form it was intended to be, but wow, is it ever a bizarre ride. I've really just kind of scratched the surface of the story, but that could be because I'm trying to make sense of the senseless--in fact, don't even bother trying to follow what is going on--just enjoy this movie for what it is. This flick really has it all--the good, the bad, and the so bad it's good, and this starts with the special effects. When they are good, they are fantastic, especially the practical effects. 

Vampire zombie thing

On the flip side, we have the bad...and it's really, really bad.

Outer space discothèque

The acting is much the same, and Railsback is so over the top at times you wonder if what you are seeing is amateur hour or absolute brilliance. There are scenes near the end that, for a few seconds, look like Ghostbusters slipped into some strange parallel universe. There is a fair amount of blood, and Patrick Stewart of X-Men fame even pops in for a little bit. The movie was based on a book titled The Space Vampires, and I don't have any idea how closely it follows said book, but at almost two hours (the uncut version I watched), the movie runs long. This all leads to an ending that is as baffling as the rest of the film. The world was not quite ready for Lifeforce when it was released in 1985...in fact, it probably still isn't ready for it. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 6

Lifeforce Movie Trailer