In addition to the usual reviews and comments you would find on a horror movie blog, this is also a document of the wonderfully vast horror movie section of the video store I worked at in my youth.

Monday, June 23, 2008

Lifeforce (aka the movie with the HNSVC)

This month’s Final Girl Film Club selection – chosen by popular vote - is the 1985 flick Lifeforce. It’s too bad that Food Of The Gods (one of the other nominees) wasn’t picked because it would have fit in nicely with the recent Rat Week festivities here at The Horror Section. Alas, I am but one man and must follow the will of the cuckoo nutsos. Anyway, let’s get on with it shall we?

Poor Tobe Hooper. He never quite seemed to get out from underneath his brilliant debut The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. There was Poltergeist, of course, but most people you ask associate that classic with Steven Spielberg. He has numerous horror titles on his resume, but also occasionally looked to the stars for material. In the mid eighties, he directed two evil alien flicks. They was Invaders From Mars and Lifeforce, which may have been his most ambitious film and certainly the most grandiose.

I came aboard the Lifeforce train way later than you might expect. I remember that seeing that cool eye-next-to-the-world teaser trailer when I was a kid, but it never really struck me as something I needed to see. If I’d known about the hot naked space vampire chick… Well, things would have been a bit different. And it was a Golan Globus Production! Do you know how many times I watched Ninja III: The Domination as a youngster? Let’s just say a lot.


I’m in a playful mood today, so I’m just gonna have a little fun with this one. Lifeforce starts up with this crazy Henry Mancini score that struck me as very medieval for some reason, like I was in King Arthur’s court rather than flying through an asteroid belt. Steve Railsback and his crew are on a space mission into Haley’s Comet where they discover a huge alien craft onboard which, is said hot naked space vampire chick… and oh yeah… two other unimportant dudes in cryo-statis. They get brought back to Earth and then – as you might imagine – all hell breaks loose. Railsback kisses Patrick Stewart and employs some very interesting interrogation techniques on this other woman. “I’m a natural voyeur.” Classic.

Space exploration has its ups...


...and downs.


There’s some great eighties cheese to be had here. A highlight is some of the creative animatronics utilized. It’s some really cool shit that just isn’t done anymore. And if that’s not your bag, there’s a great light show featuring those things that were in the Lost Ark. The film maybe a bit long in the tooth, but it’s all good. The destruction of an entire city takes time, you know. Did I mention the hot naked space vampire chick?

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