Lifeforce

Dir: Tobe Hooper

1985

*****

If anyone tries to tell you that Lifeforce is a bad film ignore them, it is quite the opposite. It could be down to the fact that it is one of Cannon’s infamous flops that makes people believe in this vicious rumour but then it is also one of the reasons why Cannon became such a cult studio with a huge legion of fans. Director Tobe Hooper once said of working for Golan-Globus "Cannon was really a good company to work for...both Yoram (Globus) and Menahem (Golan) loved the movies and the filmmakers, and really treated them well. It seemed more, when I was there, like maybe what the old system was like. I miss that kind of showmanship and risk-taking." Hooper almost lost one of his ears during the shooting of a scene on the freezing cold English moors. Based on Colin Wilson's 1976 novel The Space Vampires, Lifeforce is both bizarre and amazing. After its release, Colin Wilson recalled that author John Fowles regarded the film adaptation of his own novel The Magus in 1968, as the worst film adaptation of a novel ever. Wilson told Fowles there was now a worse one, the film adaptation of his "Lifeforce". He was wrong of course as the film blows his novel out of the sky. It begins when the crew of the space shuttle Churchill finds a 150-mile-long spaceship hidden in the coma of Halley's Comet. Inside, the crew discovers hundreds of dead bat-like creatures and three naked humanoid bodies (two male and one female) in suspended animation within glass containers. The crew recovers the three aliens and begins the return trip to Earth. However, during the return journey, mission control loses contact with Churchill and a rescue mission is launched to investigate. The rescuers discover that Churchill has been severely damaged by fire, yet the three containers bearing the aliens remain intact. The aliens are taken to the European Space Research Centre in London. Prior to an autopsy, the female alien awakens and drains the life force out of a guard. She then escapes the facility and proceeds to drain other humans of their life force, revealing an ability to shape-shift. Meanwhile, in Texas, an escape pod from Churchill is found, with Col. Tom Carlsen inside. Carlsen is flown to London, where he describes the course of events, culminating in the draining of the crew's life force. Carlsen explains that he set fire to the shuttle with the intention of saving Earth from the same fate and escaped in the pod. However, when he is hypnotized, it becomes clear that Carlsen possesses a psychic link to the female alien. Carlsen and SAS Col Colin Caine trace the alien to a psychiatric hospital in Yorkshire. There, the two believe they have managed to trap the alien within the heavily sedated body of the hospital's manager, Dr Armstrong. Carlsen and Caine later learn that they were deceived, as the aliens had wanted to draw them out of London. As Carlsen and Caine are transporting Dr Armstrong back to London, the female alien escapes from her sedated host and disappears. In London, a plague has overtaken the city and martial law has been declared. The two male vampires, previously thought destroyed, have escaped from confinement by shape-shifting into the soldiers guarding them; the pair then transform most of London's population into zombies. After their life force has been drained by the male vampires, the victims seek out other humans to absorb their life force, perpetuating the cycle. The absorbed life forces are channeled by the male vampires to the female vampire, who transmits the accumulated energy to their spaceship in orbit. Dr Fallada impales one of the male vampires with an ancient device of "leaded iron". Carlsen admits to Caine that, while on Churchill, he felt compelled to open the female vampire's container and to share his life force with her. She is later found inside St. Paul's Cathedral, lying upon the altar, transferring the energy to her spaceship. She reveals, much to Carlsen's shock, that they are a part of each other due to the sharing of their life forces, thus their psychic bond. Caine follows Carlsen into the cathedral and is intercepted by the second male vampire, whom he kills. Carlsen impales himself and the female alien simultaneously. The female is only wounded and returns to her ship with Carlsen in tow, releasing a burst of energy that blows open the dome of St. Paul's. The two ascend the column of energy to the spaceship, which then returns to the comet. Ridiculous but ridiculously good. The film boasts a great eclectic cast including Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, and Patrick Stewart – sadly Billy Idol turned down an offer to star as one of the male vampires. Lifeforce was the first film of Tobe Hooper's three-picture deal with Cannon Films, following his success with Poltergeist in 1982, which was a collaboration with producer Steven Spielberg (although many state that Spielberg did all the directing). The other two films are the remake of Invaders from Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. Hooper was second choice after Michael Winner declined. The film was originally filmed and promoted under the same title as the Colin Wilson novel. Cannon Films, which reportedly spent nearly $25 million in hopes of creating a blockbuster film, disliked The Space Vampires for sounding too much like another of the studio's typical low budget exploitation films. As a result, the title was changed to Lifeforce, referring to the spiritual energy the space vampires drain from their victims. The screenplay was written by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby. Tobe Hooper came up with the idea of using Halley's Comet in the screenplay, rather than the asteroid belt as originally used in the novel, as the comet was going to pass by Earth one year following the film's release. A clever idea, as I remember Halley's Comet being a well-discussed subject at the time. The time settings were also changed from the mid-21st century to the present day. The film marked the fourth project to feature special effects produced by Academy Award winner John Dykstra, who in 1986 was granted with the "Caixa Catalunya Award for Best Special Effects" in the Sitges Film Festival (located in Spain) for his special effects work in Lifeforce. The umbrella-like alien spaceship was modelled after an artichoke, while the model London destroyed in the film was actually the remains of Tucktonia, a model village near Christchurch, United Kingdom, that had closed not long before the shooting of the film. It took a week to film the death scene of the pathologist played by Jerome Willis, and bodycasts of Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart and Aubrey Morris were made by make-up effects supervisor Nick Maley for their death scenes. One effect near the end of the film involving the column of energy rising from the female alien through the top of St. Paul's Cathedral to the spacecraft was engineered by art director Tony Reading. A column of 3-M material was placed against black velvet and a crew member blew cigar smoke into its bottom. This image was then front projected onto a translucent projection screen behind the actors to create the energy column. Simple techniques but the finished product is old school but quite stunning, even by today’s standards. The original cut is said to have been cut to ribbons, which is a shame but the final cut as it stands is quite spectacular and is one of the greatest (and most bizarre) sci-fi horrors of all time.