Lifeforce (Tobe Hooper, 1985)
"It's madness!"
This 1985 gem is based on a book entitled The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson. Adapted by Sci-fi legend Dan O'Bannon & Don Jakoby and directed by horror maestro Tobe Hooper, Lifeforce should be a classic sci-fi horror of our time, yet appears -unfairly- to be considered a B movie. It ain't. It is, however, mad as a bag of spiders, incorporating similarities to Star Wars (a new hope, not the more recent shit ones), Alien (actually written by O'Bannon), Poltergeist and Mario Bava's influential Planet of the vampires. This is a full blown big budget extravaganza from Yoram Globus & Menahem Golan aka Cannon films! Buckle up!
A bunch of astronauts who are investigating Halley's Comet stumble onto a large space vehicle and, being a bit nosy, venture into the vehicle only to discover an array of dead 'bats'. More interestingly, they also find three bodies, which appear to be human, enclosed in some kind of kooky life-preserving pods. They are all in the buff, which is handy, as one of the three happens to be a sensationally beautiful 'woman' (French actress MATHILDA MAY). The three bodies are taken back on board the space shuttle, and weird things begin to happen. The shuttle is found 30 days later by NASA ® and the bodies are taken to London, England for tests.
Needless to say, all bloody hell breaks loose as the 3 humanoids break free of their life pods. It transpires the three bodies happen to be space vampires who survive by sucking the 'life-force' out of us poor, wretched human beings. On top of this, the vampires can inhabit other people's human bodies, which blows the whole concept sky high, doesn't it? Only heroic SAS man Peter Firth, astronutter Steve Railsback and professor Frank Finlay can find out who, why, what and how?!
The cast are excellent, mostly because they appear to take it all very seriously indeed. A special mention must go to the stunningly attractive female human named MATHILDA MAY, who parades around naked for most of the film… which is nice to see, as she's so incredibly lovely.
Another major star of the film is John Dykstra's SFX, which still (mostly) look good even today. I'm sure a lot of time went into these kooky fx. The right horroronorable Tobe Hooper's direction is taut, and at just under 2 hours, this vampiric space madness zips along at quite a sexy speed throughout. Henry Mancini's score is also worth a mention, as is the mad 5.1 surround mix on this MGM DVD. The third act is especially mental, as Cannon films goes balls out to top every film ever made! Lifeforce must now be considered a deranged classic of our time. It's tremendous.
2013 Update! Scream factory got the rights to release this on Blu-ray for North America, which finally gives this classic the definition it deserves. It also kills off the 'botty-screen' Aspect ratio of the old MGM DVD, and gives us some newly produced extras in the form of interviews and the like. Mathilda May is still stunning! As is the HD Video & Audio presentation on this Region A 'locked' Blu-ray.
I must also add that Lifeforce absolutely wipes the floor with worthless Hollywood dog shit like Prometheus. Lifeforce is a proper Sci-fi/horror film for adults only. A rip-roaring bastard of a film!
