'Lifeforce' review by MartialHorror.
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LIFEFORCE(1985)
(Directed by Tobe Hooper)
"This is why it's dangerous to give Tobe Hooper lots of money..."- Signed by MartialHorror.
Plot: A female space vampire is brought to Earth by a crew of doomed astronauts. Once she arrives, she begins gathering energy by draining people life forces, which turns them into vampires who crave the life forces of others. I'm dead serious....
Review:
“Lifeforce” is another sad example as to why Tobe Hooper’s career crashed so badly. Despite the fact that it’s unclear as to how much of “Poltergeist” Hooper actually directed, it did for a short time turn him into the “next big thing”, which I believe formerly was John Carpenter. Carpenter had a brief period where he was getting big budgets for his horror films, only for them to be financially unsuccessful("The Thing"). Hooper, getting a contract with Cannon films, was allowed to direct 3 big budgeted horror films. One of them was another space vampire film no one remembers and I haven’t even seen. Another was “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”, which was marred by the fact it was trying to be funny when it wasn’t. While that must have been a big shocker to Hooper, as it’s predecessor was a smash hit and a cult classic, it wasn’t as big or as shockingly bad as his first Cannon film, “Lifeforce”, which has gotten itself a strong cult following, albeit for all the wrong reasons.
“Lifeforce” stars Steve Railsback as Carlsen, a Colonel leading a spaceship expedition to….something I can’t remember. Anyway, they find a spaceship full of vampire corpses(giant bats, which look pretty cool). But then they find three naked people, trapped in these force field like coffins. They bring the trio on their ship, and a few weeks later, the crew is dead, an escape pod is missing and the ship is getting closer to earth. But the three naked vampi-I mean, human looking people, remain intact. Soon, one of the coffins open and a hot, naked chick(Mathilda May) comes out and starts draining peoples life forces, which turns them into vampires. When Carlsen turns up alive in the escape pod, he and a few others must find her and stop her before it’s too late.
“Lifeforce” suffers from many problems, but what it doesn’t suffer from is production values. The film looks very good, with some awesome special effects, great creature designs and Hooper manages to inject a few scenes of spooky atmosphere and creative energy. There are a few wonderfully startling moments, and the finale was pretty spectacular in its scope. But in a way, it’s these benefits that make it more disappointing.
It feels like Cannon threw $25,000,000(a staggering budget for a horror film at the time, ESPECIALLY considering Cannon was known for being cheap) at Tobe Hooper and told him to make a movie. Unfortunately, he had no story, but happened to see a few genre classics and decided to steal from them. The opening scene on the space ship feels very much like “Alien”, although not as scary or memorable(still pretty effective though). He also added a dash of “Star Wars” in its tone and I could swear that at one point, he rips off the music. I wouldn’t mind these inspirations if that was the whole movie, as clones of these movies are generally pretty fun when done right, and the first act was done well enough. But then the film suddenly goes into “The Thing” territory with its themes of identity. But by the ending, we really learn that all along, this was a blatant rip-off of “Quatermass and the Pit”. As I am a fan of all three of these movies, I wouldn’t mind this being a rip-off, but the film just doesn’t come together very well, feeling like multiple movies spliced into one.
To add to the sense of disjointedness, the film doesn’t even know who it wants to follow. It starts off following Carlsen and his crew, then shifts to Dr. Fallada(Frank Finley) and Dr. Bukovsky(Michael Gothard; whose character isn’t even properly resolved). Then Caine(Peter Firth), an SAS member, replaces Bukovsky. Then Carlsen returns and replaces Fallada, who I personally liked a lot more than Carlsen. There isn’t enough screen time for anyone to be fully fleshed out, and we’re not even sure who we should be following. The only upside to this is that we're not really sure who will die. But at the same time, did anyone care?
Oh, but wait, that’s not all to add to the disjointedness. The tone is flat out awful. It starts off like an 80’s, hip kind of movie with a good looking cast, a naked vampire, and some disturbing violence. Then it shifts to a “stuffy old men talking” type of movie, then it becomes a freaking zombie movie, and THEN it becomes strangely spiritual, reminding me of “Poltergeist II”. But I suppose the movies biggest fault has to be casting Railsback as the protagonist. The acting in general is uneven, but he is by far the worst here. I’ve seen enough of his work to know he can do better, but his awful performance makes things unintentionally hilarious. Granted, his dialogue doesn’t help him, but everything about him feels awkward. As much as this harmed the movie, it might have helped it in the long run by turning it into a camp classic, if that’s what it really is.
Ugh, jeez, there is so much I want to talk about, but feel I better wrap it up. Let’s see…..Well, the story seems to pull itself out of its own ass quite often. They’ll randomly throw in a revelation that Carlsen and the vampire share a telepathic link for exposition purposes, some character finds a way to kill the vampires in the silliest way possible, and even the ending feels random. Oh, and here is a scary thought. I now have to wonder if the makers of “X-Men 2” had seen this, because there is one scene that might be a homage involving Patrick Stewart. Let’s just say I never want to see Patrick Stewart saying “I love you” to another man again!
“Lifeforce” has its moment and sports some great visual effects. But Hooper seems to have been lost underneath heaps of bad writing, convoluted subplots and bad actors. He seems to have forgotten that films like “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, “Poltergeist” and EVEN “Funhouse” worked because they were so simple, and simplicity tends to be the best route for horror films. Still, “Lifeforce” could’ve been worse…..A lot worse. I'll end on this. "Lifeforce" wasn't good for Tobe Hooper, but I do think Tobe Hooper was good for "Lifeforce".
Violence: It does have some unsettling scenes when you see what happens when you lose your lifeforce.
Nudity: There is a fair amount of female flesh and some male nudity.
Overall: I’d personally avoid “Lifeforce” unless you want to watch all of Tobe Hooper’s films(like me) or you like overblown messes. I almost want to say it’s the “Waterworld” of horror films, although it's not that simple. Enough is done right, however, to keep it from being a complete crapfest and I have to confess....I kind of like it. It might be a failure, but it is an interesting failure.
2/4 Stars
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