Bergorks
If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.
Lachlan Coulson
This is a gorgeous movie made by a gorgeous spirit.
Juana
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
FlashCallahan
Halley's Comet returns to the solar system, and the team aboard the shuttle Churchill, discover an alien spacecraft in the comet. Inside the spacecraft are three cocoons with three humans. The Churchill takes the humans back to Earth. Once there the leaders of the project find the shuttle burnt out and all but one of the crew, Carlsen, dead. The humans from the spacecraft awake and all those who come into contact with them are drained of their life force, and in time most of the population of London are turned into zombie like creatures all preying on the horrified survivors......This was Cannon Pictures big chance to make their studio big. They had a seasoned director, a wonderful cast, and a considerable budget for the time.But the film squanders any idea it had by just being that little bit too long, and being convoluted to the point that you just decide to watch it for the arguably wonderful effects, and a certain Mathilda May walking around with no clothing whatsoever.Elsewhere in the film, we have Steve Railsback playing Basil Exposition, explaining the plot to rest of the characters.But it has that Cannon sheen, and any film that features Patrick Stewart being taken over by a woman, has to be worth a watch.The final third of the film is just beyond the laws of plausibility, with a very cheap looking London being overrun by wait for it.....Space Vampires.28 Days Later this is not.But it has it's charm, it's funny to see all this seasoned actors keep a straight face when spouting utter bilge from the script.If like me, your a Cannon completest, it needs to be seen. Just don't expect to get the enjoy-ability you had from their very low budget out put.
utgard14
Three vampiric aliens found in Halley's Comet are brought back to Earth, where they wreak havoc all over London. Now a team of British scientists and an American astronaut (Steve Railsback) must try to stop them, even though one (Mathilda May) is a total babe that is allergic to clothing.The special effects and sets are very good. The script is smart and the direction solid. The cast is fine, although Steve Railsback is a little wooden. Obviously the movie is most famous for Mathilda May walking around nude for almost the entire film. Which is a shame, as it's a quality sci-fi film. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't averting my eyes whenever Miss May was on screen anymore than the next guy. She's certainly gorgeous. But it's caused this movie's reputation to suffer and now it's mostly known as "that sci-fi movie where the chick walks around naked the whole time."This was the first of three films that Tobe Hooper did for Cannon. He was a big "get" for them at the time and they gave him a huge budget for this film. Unfortunately all three of Hooper's Cannon films flopped at the box office and played a part in Cannon falling apart in the late '80s. It also meant the end of Hooper's career as an A-list director. He would never make anything great or even very good again.
Joxerlives
Such a wonderful film, every time you think you've got the handle on it they throw in something new that totally takes you by surprise. I can see why it wasn't a success (partly I think because of the useless eye-over-Earth poster, you have a film with the gorgeous naked Mathilda May, apocalyptic London and huge spaceships and you don't put them on the poster? Indeed most of the advertising art for Lifeforce seems to be for a different film altogether and never appears on screen) but surely it deserved to be?What's great about it? EVERYTHING! Mathilda May is just the most beautiful woman ever, she's sexier than Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and Eliza Dushku as the dominatrix and that's really saying something. On the whole the perversion in this mainstream film really has to be seen to be believed, Aubrey Morris as the Home Secretary seems to be constantly salivating over it all like the customer at a porno show and you feel that many in the audience will be feeling the same way. Amidst exploding zombie corpses and naked spacegirls constructed from her victim's blood the scene that really stands out to you is the heroes slapping the beautiful red-headed nurse around for information but saying that's OK because she's 'an extreme masochist' and is loving every second of it. Even in today's world of extreme gorno I don't think you'd get away with that any more in a mainstream film (interesting rewatching that scene and looking at the posters on the wall behind her, her as a little girl being hugged by her father and a sticker saying 'Head over heels in love'?). Some great performances from Peter Firth (Colonel Caine, SAS)and Frank Finlay (obstensibly a bio-chemist but his real interest is death), watching these characters dealing best they can with a situation totally beyond their control. A few great lines of dialogue and some wonderful set-pieces, absolutely love Caine heroically fighting his way through zombie infested London to Henry Mancini's amazing orchestral score to save the day and Carlsen's valiant act of self-sacrifice (again, the last thing you're expecting, you think he'll stab her but it's a shock when he impales himself too).Many questions that are never really answered. Are Carlsen and the spacegirl dead or are they preserved in the spaceship crystal coffins as before? What happened to all the human souls, did they go free, are they trapped on the ship or have they been used to revive the vampire race? Was Fallada genuinely trying to help Caine stop the vamps or was he leading him astray knowing that he was going to try to drain him? Where did he get the sword and how did he know how to use it? All told it will never win any Oscars but it is truly fantastic in every sense of the word.
unbrokenmetal
I watched 'Lifeforce' for the first time around 1990 on video tape. Rediscovering it on Blu-ray disc a quarter of a century later is however like watching it for the first time. Not only does HD a lot more justice to a 70mm movie than a tape did, but also the Director's Cut runs a quarter of an hour longer than the old cinema version. Most cuts happened during the first third of the movie: the opening scenes in space are shortened considerably, much taking place during the titles now, not after them, and also when the SAS agent begins to investigate what has happened on the spacecraft, the dialogs were cut by several minutes. These are obviously no censorship cuts (I mean, what do you think could have been cut for that reason if the zombies and the full frontal nudity remained?), but nevertheless I'm really opposed to the short version since I watched the longer version, because the extended scenes in space are impressive, and the investigation contains more mystery and suspense if it is not over too quickly. Mind you, the second half of the movie is a bit rushed even in the extended version, take the scene when they visit the Prime Minister for instance, blink and you missed it. No tea, thanks, got to go now...The ambition of the expensive production is admittedly hampered somewhat by the ludicrous story, but 'Lifeforce' deserves to be a cult movie for a simple reason: Nobody can make a movie like that - nevertheless they did. 25 million dollar movies usually are well calculated factory products, carefully balanced and adjusted to the taste of a major audience with many test screenings. You can't do 'Bloodsucking Zombies Meet My Girlfriend From Mars' with a huge budget, any reasonable Hollywood producer would think you are insane. 'Lifeforce' just pulls it off, though. It is a wild mixture of '2001', 'Alien', 'Quatermass', and on top of it all, the sexiest female star since 'Barbarella'. What's not to love?
