The first thing you need to know is that 1985’s LIFEFORCE is based on a novel called THE SPACE VAMPIRES. Why they didn’t keep such an incredible title, in favor of the dull-as-dirt LIFEFORCE, I have no idea, but when your property starts with something called THE SPACE VAMPIRES, you’re coming out of the gate on fire. Though it doesn’t quite live up to what one would expect with such a beginning, LIFEFORCE is still a hoot, impossible to fairly review because it is both amazing and terrible at the same time.
The second thing you need to know about LIFEFORCE is that it doesn’t make any sense. Despite it having a character whose sole purpose is providing exposition, it still doesn’t make any sense. If anything, the more he explains, the less sense it makes. It occasionally feels like it was filmed with several pages missing from the script, and no one noticed. These pages would presumably fill in how the movie goes from space exploration to energy vampires to zombies to the hero making out nude with the villain before symbolically impaling them both on a long, thick sword at the end. But since those pages were evidently dropped into a shredder, or used to clean up spilled coffee, and, sadly, director Tobe Hooper and co-screenwriter Dan O’Bannon are no longer with us, we’ll just have to try to parse what remained.
A search-and-rescue space shuttle expedition discovers the remains of another shuttle, incinerated on the inside and the entire crew dead. Surviving the fire are three nude supermodels, two male and one female, encased in glass boxes. The three humanoids are brought back to London to be studied. While the two males are pretty easy on the eyes (they both look like members of Spandau Ballet), everyone in the research center immediately goes cross-eyed at the sight of the female (or rather “the Girl,” as everyone refers to her), played by Mathilda May. The Girl is the ideal ’80s horror-movie villainess, in that she’s almost always naked and almost never speaks. You’ll also note that, while she’s frequently shot fully from the front, her two male companions, who conveniently disappear for much of the movie, are only shot from the waist up. We’ve come a long way, baby!
It’s difficult to tell if the Girl is using mind control, or if her mostly male victims are simply overwhelmed by the sight of her impressive jugs, but she’s able to easily overcome them and drain the titular lifeforce out of them. You know, like Colin Robinson in What We Do In The Shadows, but in a sexy way. The victims are left looking like shriveled up pieces of beef jerky, but if they’re able to take someone else’s lifeforce, they’ll return to their normal selves, with a window of only two hours until they have to feed again. Much of what we learn about the space vampires comes by way of Dr. Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay), who just seems to deduce, Sherlock Holmes-style, what the space vampires’ motives are, and also that they can only be killed with a giant ancient sword (“Leaded iron!” he points out more than once, like it means something). He explains much of this to police investigator Colonel Caine (Peter Firth), who regards everything with very British “Right then, that’s quite unusual” calmness.
Astronaut Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback, in one of many roles where he looked like he was about to snap and hijack a bus) crashes to Earth in an escape pod. As we learned from the opening of the film, Carlsen was on the shuttle that caught fire, and discovered the space vampires. After exchanging some of his own lifeforce with the Girl (if ya know what I mean), he’s now soul-bonded with her. This means not only can he read her thoughts and see what sort of shenanigans she’s getting into, but he also has sex dreams about her that look like they’re filmed on the set of a Slayer video. “You’re draining me!” he cries out in one scene. “You’re taking too much of me!”
So yes, LIFEFORCE is a very silly movie. And yet, it’s so committed to whatever the heck it’s trying to do that you can’t help but admire it. If anything, it’s trying too much, with a villain who can not only drain people of their energy, but Force-choke them, possess them, and send lightning bolts out of her hands. There’s a lot of nonsense about Carlsen’s fate being determined by a “web of destiny,” and how not only was he meant to discover the space vampires, he’s, in fact, a space vampire himself. You’d think that it’d be hard to not know that you’re a space vampire, but who can say?
Though LIFEFORCE sags a bit in the middle, the last 25 minutes or so is a glorious free-for-all of zombie hordes, towering infernos, exploding double decker buses, and some sort of gigantic winged creature. The souls the space vampires collect are siphoned into what looks like a giant umbrella, so that they can… well, that part Dr. Fallada doesn’t seem to know, and nobody else does either. By the time Carlsen stabs himself and his space chick with that big long phallic symbol, London’s population seems to have been reduced solely to Colonel Caine, while Carlsen and the Girl just… go back to space? Yes, that’s what seems to happen, presumably so they can box themselves up and wait for the next shuttle crew to show up and start the whole process over again.
To quote the late, great Fred Willard in A MIGHTY WIND: “Wha happen?” But honestly, does it matter? There’s a scene in which blood spraying out of Patrick Stewart’s mouth and eyes takes the shape of the Girl. When you have scenes like that, or Steve Railsback tossing aside a still-twitching dismembered zombie arm like a bad banana, you don’t need a comprehensive plot. When you have Railsback sweating and shouting and smacking people around like he’s trying to find out where the next big cocaine drop is going to happen, you don’t need a clear and concise storyline. LIFEFORCE will never win any awards for coherence, but it’s entertaining sci-fi/horror cheese. Not nutritious, still delicious.
Tags: Alan Hume, Blu-ray, Cannon Films, Colin Wilson, Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby, Frank Finlay, Henry Mancini, Horror, Mathilda May, Menahem Golan, Patrick Stewart, Peter Firth, Sci-Fi, Steve Railsback, The UK, Tobe Hooper, Yoram Globus
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