LIFEFORCE (1985)

This cult-classic tale of a guy who has totally fallen head-over-heels for a hot alien lady who happens to be a Vampire from Space may count as a guilty-pleasure to some, but for me, it's an old favorite.

“Don't worry. A naked girl is not going to get out of this complex.” - Dr. Hans Fallada

Tobe Hooper and Dan O'Bannon's LIFEFORCE is a film I've liked ever since I first watched it on home-video when I was about 17 years old. Granted, at least 70% of why I enjoyed it at the time is directly attributable to the spectacular assets of the strikingly beautiful French-born actor Mathilda May, but I enjoyed it all the same. 

Produced by the notorious B-movie factory Cannon Films (and arguably the best film the studio ever churned out), the movie bombed at the box-office, and most critics were none too kind, but it ended up becoming a cult-classic and did so on more than the inherent charms of May's pert physique. And sure enough, across the intervening 34-odd years since I first saw it on VHS, and after at least a half-dozen repeat-viewings, I've since found more reasons to enjoy it. 

Based on Colin Wilson's 1976 novel "The Space Vampires", LIFEFORCE is, at its core, a story about two people, soulmates in essentially the truest sense, seemingly separated by vast gulfs of space and time, who eventually find one-another. Sure, one is an astronaut, and the other is an immortal, body-hopping Space-Succubus, but they love one another all the same. The fact that their attraction threatens every human life on Earth is almost academic. 

The film is, to some extent, faithful to much of the spirit of the book, although it dumps most of the novel's extensive exposition, virtually all of its clunky existential musings and heavily Lovecraftian overtones, its problematic and dated treatises on human sexuality, and some of its sexism. But only some. After all, if we're being completely honest, Mathilda May was cast so she could walk around completely naked for at least half of her screen-time, drawing the male-gaze, upholding unrealistic standards of beauty for women along the way, and making it all look easy. 

LIFEFORCE is a film that has a lot going on, and at times it comes across as somewhat schlocky, and boasts a rather chaotic climax that requires a bit of mental digestion after the fact. But I strongly feel that its positives outweigh its negatives. 

First off, you have Steve Railsback as Col. Tom Carlsen, commander of the fictional ESA Space Shuttle "Churchill", guiding his crew on their mission to explore Halley's Comet during its 1986 flyby. Carlsen strikes an even, commanding presence at the start of the film, but vanishes from the proceedings at the 13-minute mark, whereupon the film moves on without him. 

Granted, you really don't miss him, because all sorts of shit goes down during the 30 minutes of runtime that he's absent. It's during this stretch that the trio of sleeping Space-Vampires are brought down to terra-firma, awaken, and start causing problems by sucking away the life-energies of the human bag-lunches surrounding them. It's also this stretch that many find the most memorable, because these are the scenes where the lovely miss May calmly stalks around in the buff. 

When Carlsen's escape-pod is finally located in Texas at the 44-minute mark, that's when he really gets going. From that point on, Railsback gives viewers a genre performance for the ages, as the formerly even-keeled Carlsen is revealed to be a very changed man after his rescue: traumatized, confused, terrified, evasive, manic, and very nearly out of his mind. It's a batshit-crazy performance that works, oddly enough, because it never devolves into parody or comedy, nor does he exaggerate Carlsen's conflicting drives into overacting. His actions, rational and otherwise, are all understandable, and in the hands of a lesser actor, the role could have easily become farcical and taken the whole film with it in the process, but Railsback really sells it. 

As an aside, Railsback would go on to to give genre fans another memorable performance some 9 years later on the "The X-Files" as the titular abductee Duane Barry, who appears in episodes 5 and 6 of the show's second season. But I digress.

Surrounding Railsback is a bevy of good actors, from co-star Peter Firth to Frank Finlay in his very Quatermass-like supporting role, with the likes of Michael Gothard, Aubrey Morris, and even a pre STAR TREK: THE NEXT GENERATION Sir. Patrick Stewart, in a rather brief but very memorable role of his own.

Speaking of Quatermass, one of the reasons why I enjoy this film, and one of the reasons why it has become such a cult-classic, revolves around the fact that it reads very much like a film that Hammer Studios would have made, had it survived into the 1980's and had a budget to play around with. Tobe Hooper would go on to admit that was precisely what was aiming for, saying "I thought I'd go back to my roots and make a 70 mm Hammer film." Since the result strongly resembles a reimagined "Quatermass and the Pit", I'd say Tobe succeeded in that regard.

The film also boasts some truly spectacular special-effects and model-work, from a team led by academy-award winning FX veteran John Dykstra (Star Wars, Stuart Little, Spider-Man, X-Men: First Class), highly effective special make-up and prosthetics work by Nick Maley (Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Superman, The Keep, Highlander), and a fantastic, epic musical score by the late, great Henry Mancini. 

Overall, LIFEFORCE is a somewhat over-produced spectacle in the form of a very 1980's sci-fi thriller that nonetheless hits more than it misses, delivering a satisfying movie-viewing experience overall for most of its running-time. When you're just looking for some cinematic fun to burn almost 2 hours of your time, it can be hard to ask for more than that.

Three-and-a-half stars (***1/2), recommended.