Captain_Couth
"A hot space vampire levels London in this sci-fi epic from Tobe Hooper."
For the Discerning Sci-Fi Fan!
Join | Log In
Beautiful nude woman starts space vampire apocalypse. No, this isn't a B movie either.
-
Oct 10, 2010
- by TheJohn
- posted in Movie Hype
Rating:
+2
Lifeforce is one of those movies you hear about for the same reason, the naked woman who was in it. Kinda like how Total Recall is remembered largely for the three breasted hooker. I finally got around to seeing Lifeforce and realized the talent that was involved in this movie which gets overlooked. John Dykstra who pioneered special effects for Star Wars was involved in this, Dan O' Bannon who wrote and came up with the idea for Alien wrote the script, Henry Mancini did the music and the director of Poltergeist is the director! Patrick Stewart and Steve Railsback are stars in this not to mention Mathilda May is the gorgous and naked alien woman. This can't be all bad right? No, in fact it isn't that bad, keep in mind that doesn't mean it's going to knock your socks off either.
In the future, a joint US and English space exploration comes across a derelict ship in the tail of Halley's Comet. Astronauts are sent to investigate and after poking around they come across a room full of dead bat like creatures and even further probing finds a capsule with three nude human's, two males and a female. Taking the humans back on board we cut to Earth where the shuttle that was exploring is found adrift near Earth and another shuttle finds the interior burned and the inhabitants onboard are dead, say the three capsuled humans. The humans once awoke back on Earth begin absorbing the energy of those around them for nourishment and begin moving they're conscience from one body to another all over England. The SAS and scientists involved come to a conclusion...the alien humans are some kind of space vampire and the ship they came from is to start collecting all the human's on Earth energy.
Lifeforce did have some nice touches, paricularily with the actors like Patrick Stewart as the Doctor at an insane asylum, Steve Railsback as the commander of the shuttle mission who we see go nuts even the SAS head played by Peter Firth has a professional and disciplined attitude that doesn't begin to start flaunting his weight around like you think he would. Mathilda May as the "Space Woman" doesn't do much in the way of acting, it's her job to be mysterious and nude. She does that well at least with only a few lines given to her.
Sadly the movie does have a couple if issues and they are small. The big one is that Dan O' Bannon and the creators doesn't quite know what he wants the story to be outside of the obvious opening of the film being very similar to O' Bannon's most famous work, Alien. Seriously, the first 10 minutes of this film is the first 50 or so of Alien truncated and sped up mostly. After the mystery with the shuttle it gets sexual and scary with the Space Woman, then back to a mystery while the SAS and scientists try to find the woman and her two male cohorts, then it gets gory with corpses and monsters and by the end we see zombie apocalypse as the space vampires and they're ilk start to spread among the London inhabitants. If they stuck to cool and mysterious it would have been better to me anyway and leave only a little bit of the monsters in. I wouldn't mind the film's slow pace either if the scares were a little better and not all shock-see them coming a mile away scares.
I was interested in seeing Lifeforce even inspite of it's world's oldest word of mouth that it has. It's not bad and it easily could have delved far worse into complete schlock territory so tt's a good thing the talent involved keeps things above that level. The slow paces and uneven tone though made me feel that my Lifeforce was running dry at times.
What did you think of this review?
Helpful
12
Thought-Provoking
9
Fun to Read
9
Well-Organized
9
Post a Comment
Scotman
January 14, 2011
Good review; more detail than mine, but I got the almost-okay-to-show video on mine, LOL. Yes it is a B movie, but unintentional I'm sure.
show text editor
FM_ALEX
October 10, 2010
I have to say that I actually like this movie alot, another great review, well done.
TheJohn
October 10, 2010
Yeah it's good. Not great but good. It's still surpirsing sometimes that no matter who or what is going on in a movie, it's always the nude scene that people are going to talk about.
show text editor
woopak_the_thrill
October 10, 2010
I saw this in Asian theaters when I was a teen--whoa. It was a pleasant surprise for me when I saw those scenes. They weren't distasteful as they were essential to the film's story. (I think he-heh) The words "introducing: Mathilda May" still puts a smile on my face LOL!
TheJohn
October 10, 2010
I first heard of Mathilda in a FMV game that I reviewed not long ago called Privateer 2 The Darkening. It's in The Gamers Hub community. You'd think "Introducing" would be bringing forth a major actress who will rock the world instead of a really sexy lady who only appears here and there. For all the word of mouth I kept hearing about this movie and her being in it, she isn't in it that much. Thats fine. The movie is still good.
show text editor
1
More Lifeforce reviews
The most cruel, complimentary and accurate comment that could be made regarding this film is that it's probably the best of its genre that Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus ever produced. These two Israeli schlockmeisters have made more money from cheap, exploitive movies than probably anyone else in film history. Of course, this particular entry in the long line of cheesy Golan-Globus fare isn't as good or as interesting as it is because of them. Far more amazing than the film itself is the … more
Comments (6)
Compliments (36)
review by Captain_Couth.
May 08, 2009
Lifeforce is a Cannon funded film directed by Tobe Hooper. It's a very interesting film that deals with a pair of space vampires who are accidentally brought back down to Earth during the latest space shuttle mission. Steve Railsback stars as the sole survivor of the tragedy. But really folks the movie is a mere showcase for the natural beauty of Mathilda May. She's one smoking hot number. The director was a huge fan of Female Vampire (a.k.a. Erotikill). Miss May recreates Lina Romay's title role … more
Comment
Compliment
About the reviewer
John Nelson (TheJohn)
Born in Wausau Wisconsin. Move at an early age to Ventura California and lived for 8 years. Growing up in a big city landscape didn't prepare me for my next move: Archbold Ohio with a population of … more
Consider the Source
Use Trust Points to see how much you can rely on this review.
You
TheJohn
Your ratings:
About this movie
A 1985 horror/sci-fi film directed by Tobe Hooper. Screenplay written by Dan O'Bannon loosely based upon the novel Space Vampires.
view wiki
Cast:
Burnell Tucker,
John Forbes-Robertson,
Patrick Connor,
Peter Firth,
Chris Sullivan,
Jerome Willis,
Patrick Stewart,
Sydney Kean,
Aubrey Morris,
Michael Fitzpatrick,
Frank Finlay,
Richard Oldfield,
Edward Evans,
John Hallam,
Steve Railsback,
Mathilda May,
Michael Gothard,
Nicholas Ball,
Nancy Paul,
Emma Jacobs,
Chris Jagger,
John Keegan,
Bill Malin,
Ken Parry,
Julian Firth,
Christopher Barr,
Paul Cooper,
David English,
John Golightly,
Thom Booker,
Rupert Baker,
David Beckett,
Derek Benfield,
Milton Cadman,
Brian Carroll,
Nicholas Donnelly,
John Edmunds,
Geoffrey Frederick,
Gary Hildreth,
Owen Holder,
William Lindsay,
Peter Lovstrom,
Elizabeth Morton,
Michael John Paliotti,
Jamie Roberts,
Richard Sharpe,
Russell Sommers,
Haydn Wood,
Sydney Livingstone,
Peter Porteous,
Carl Rigg,
Katherine Schofield,
John Woodnut
Director:
Tobe Hooper
Genre:
Sci-Fi,
Horror,
Fantasy
Release Date:
June 21, 1985
MPAA Rating:
R
Screen Writer:
Dan O'Bannon
Runtime:
1hr 40min
Studio:
Cannon Films
First to Review
- About Lunch
- Press
- FAQs
- Contact Us
- Terms of Service
- Privacy Policy
- Sitemap
- Report Abuse
© 2013 Lunch.com, LLC All Rights Reserved
Lunch.com - Relevant reviews by real people.