Lifeforce

[Eirik]

I started typing out a response to the Lifeform thread below when it occurred to me I was typing about a different movie.  So I'll mention it in a new thread: Anyone see Lifeforce?  It was an 80's scifi flick that capitalized on the Haley's Comet arrival.  Of course you couldn't see Haley's Comet in the real northern hemisphere, but you could in the movie.

This one started out strong with a British-American space mission discovering an alien ship flying in the tail of the comet.  On board they find three apparent humans in suspended animation (including an attractive woman who is completely naked for most of the movie as I recall).  Anyway, they bring hem back to Earth and learn they are not what they appear - they are in fact life force sucking aliens.  Some connection is made between the aliens and legends of vampires I believe.  The movie deteriorates at the end when the aliens and their zombie minons take London by storm and NATO gets involved - I generally think monster movies become exponentially less scary when they forfeit the element of isolation.

Anyway - a pretty decent scifi-horror flick that flops toward the last thirty minutes.  I want to say there were some recognizeable stars in it (I'm sure there was an older British guy I knew from somewhere).  Pretty ballsy movie to combine outer space, vampires, zombies, and disaster movie themes all in one.  Extra points for the naked female alien.

[Menard]

Patrick Stewart was in it. He had joked about it being his first onscreen kiss, but it was with a guy. It was directed by Tobe Hooper who directed THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. It is also known as SPACE VAMPIRES, based on the Colin Wilson novel of the same name.

[Mr. Hockstatter]

Yeah, I thought the same thing.  Great start, but kinda went downhill towards the end.   Still a good movie overall.  And that naked babe was appreciated.

[Gerry]

Mr. Hockstatter wrote:

> that naked babe was appreciated.

Mmmm...Matilda May a.k.a. "naked babe"

[trekgeezer]

This was about something besides the naked babe or was I just distracted through the whole thing. I can think of a whole bunch of movies that would have been helped in the 'keeping my attention' department by a naked babe. :)

Whatever happened to Steve Railsback? The last thing I saw him in was a short-lived Fox show called "The Visitor" with John Corbett.

[Wence]

"Lifeforce" is a good zombie-film. Maybe the only zombie-film that has scenes with thousands of zombies.
I wouldn´t say that it "flops toward the last thirty minutes".
Why do you think that?

[Eirik]

I felt the movie was pretty scary early on but sacrificed that by becoming a disaster/end of the world type movie toward the end.  As I said, the element of isolation is pretty key to the horror genre and it's hard to think of the main characters as isolated when they have the British Army backing them up.  The idea at the end that the "nuke London" option would only make the energy sucking monsters infinitely powerful was a little too straight out of the Andromeda Strain too.

Overall I'm not knocking the movie -- I thought it was pretty good.  It's just that I felt the ending spun a little out of control in terms of scale.

[AndyC]

I liked this movie. It had kind of a Quatermass and the Pit sort of feel to it, but with a naked  chick.



Post Edited (02-25-05 20:05)

[Neville]

Liked it as well, but I don't know if it will admit a second viewing. I remind it being cool and all, but with lots of dumb plot holes. Visually stunning, certainly (I mean Mathilda May, not the movie).

[Ellie]

Not to long ago a friend and I watched it along with the movie "Night of the Comet". She liked "Lifeforce".

[I luv dolma]

It is hard to believe that Dan O'Bannon wrote the script for Lifeforce. It had an interesting start to it, but lost me half way through.