Movie #8: Lifeforce

Welcome to Sci-Fi 100! 
100 Sci-Fi movies in 100 days!

"Lifeforce" (1985) is a freaky sci-fi/horror movie. and it should be! It was brought to the screen by director Tobe Hooper, the same guy that gave us "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" (1974) "Poltergeist" (1982) &"The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" (1986.) He also directed episodes of TV shows like "Freddy's Nightmares" & "Tales From the Crypt." The film stars Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, & Peter Firth.
The story is about a British Space Shuttle with an all British crew that sets out to explore Haley's Comet and finds some pods containing naked, human-looking bodies (2 male, 1 female.)  Earth looses contact with them as they are returning to earth with the bodies. The U.S.A. sends the Space Shuttle Columbia to dock with the British Shuttle and find out what happened. The crew finds everyone onboard dead and mummified. Columbia returns to Earth and the Brits get their strange cargo brought to London where scientists begin studying the strange naked humanoid bodies. Guess what... the strange naked humanoids are actually some type of Alien vampires that suck the "Lifeforce" out of people to survive, leaving their victims in a mummified state. These mummies, over a period of time, come back to life as zombies and kill others in the same manner the vampires do... half of London quickly turn into these vampire zombies while the government tries to find a way to stop it all. 

   Click in the box above to watch the trailer for "Lifeforce."






The special effects are pretty awesome, especially the scenes in space with the space shuttles and the discovery of the aliens.
The set designs and space costumes were very well done and very believable, looking like the stuff NASA has used for the last couple of decades. The spacewalk scenes with the rocket backpacks were super.
The zombies were a little cheesy looking, but not bad for the '80s. 

The acting and the music were good for a B-movie and there was the pleasant surprise of seeing a pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart show up in some scenes as a doctor that is taken over by the head vampire.  The film was produced by the Cannon Group that did a lot of the Chuck Norris movies in the 80s, the Death Wish sequels and some American Ninja films.

The very beautiful Mathilda May plays the leader of the alien vampires who's spirit can jump from body to body to hide from the government agents that seek her out, while her own body is hidden in the safety of a basement. And did I mention that she's naked in about 80% of the movie?!? (oh snap, I think my wife reads this blog!) uh, did I mention she is fully clothed in 20% of the movie?

The last 15 minutes of the movie turns into a very cool zombie flick with the hero running through the streets of London while Zombies run amuck, terrorizing everything in their path. The hero even kills one of the main vampire aliens with a spear and it transforms into a winged creature before it dies and explodes to dust.  
"Lifeforce" is one of the better '80s sci-fi B-Movies to watch. Check it out!

- Patrick Shawn Bennett
Broadcasting from zombie infested streets of London. (not really, but that sounded like a cool thing to say.)

xxx