#8 - Lifeforce (1985)

Lifeforce (1985)

(dir. Tobe Hooper)

A group of astronauts aboard the space shuttle Churchill discover an alien spaceship hiding near Halley's comet. They board only to the find the inhabitants, strange bat-like creatures, all dead. They also find what appears to be three naked humans suspended in glass cases, so they bring them back aboard their shuttle and start to return home. During the journey, mission control loses contact with the Churchill, so they send another shuttle up on a rescue mission. The humanoid aliens, still in suspended animation, are brought back to a research facility in London, but they don't stay asleep for long... from there, the film completely fucking bananas with all kinds of crazy stuff including vampires, zombies, psychics, and lots and lots of full frontal nudity. There was a substantial portion of this movie where I had no idea what was going on.

I watched this last night and am still not quite sure what to think of it. Ignoring the batshit insane story for a moment, it is mostly a pretty good looking film, and there are some great special effects (I particularly like the emaciated look of the "zombies" once they are drained of their life force). The design of the alien spaceship is pretty cool. It also has Patrick Stewart in it, and he gets possessed by an alien vampire and then all the blood in his body shoots out of his eyes and mouth, so there's that.

This was directed by Tobe Hooper, best known as the director of such horror classics as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and Poltergeist, and written by Dan O'Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead), but if you are expecting something in the vein of those films you would be very disappointed with this one. I haven't quite made up my mind whether or not I think this is a good movie - it's certainly unique and I appreciate that it doesn't hold back its weirdness, but it also feels pretty disjointed at times. At the very least, it is interesting and memorable, which is more than I can say for a lot of films.

I can't recommend this for most people. I watch a lot of weird schlock and even I thought this was weird as hell. If a bizarre '80s sci-fi/horror hybrid about naked space vampires sounds good to you, then you might enjoy it, just don't expect it to make a lot of sense.