Sadly Over-hyped

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

The screenplay is very confusing all the way through. The backgrounds are quite unconvincing and hard to decipher what you are seeing inside the space ship and elsewhere. And frankly it was pretty darn boring. I forced myself to watch it to the end and wish I hadn't bothered. If I were Henry Mancini and/or Patrick Stewart, I would be embarrassed to have my name connected to this dog.The only good thing in this movie was the vampire girl, who was very pretty. She didn't make it worth watching though, and I give it 2 stars instead of one only because of her and her nude scenes.

The blu-ray of Lifeforce wasn't some great revelation of a lost artifact from the 80's that should be held up high as any 'great art'. Hell, the studio it's from - Cannon films, that good old purveyor of quality like Superman 4 - gives an indication that it'll be a cheesy, no-frills sci-fi. But the film has (surprisingly) some classy sci-fi direction via Tobe Hooper, for titillation (and just weirdness at times, the two mix together) Mathilda May's constant nudity, a thrilling and dark Henry Mancini score, and some bizarre and fun writing from Dan OBannon (and some boring exposition from the other writer).Really, if only the acting, aside from Patrick Stewart, wasn't so bad, and it really is sometimes hard to take - who is this lead actor guy, why hadn't I seen him aside from this, oh, right, he sucks - then it could be possibly wonderful instead of simply a curious cult object. I may have neglected to mention the story, here it is: hot alien lady comes to Earth, stirs s*** up. There.But it was better than I expected, and to the filmmaker's credit and to the intentions of one of the writers I'd suspect, it's a B movie in the proudest sense of the word.

When Lifeforce started, I wasn't sure if it was meant to be serious or if it was a parody. It had the weird stiffness in acting and blandness in style you would get from an Ed Wood movie. And it's nude-vampire concept is utterly ridiculous. But as far as I can tell, this is not a parody, this is just a bad movie notable only for having one pretty girl who never puts on any clothes.When Poltergeist came out, it seemed so Spielbergian that it was hard to believe it was directed by Tobe Hooper rather than producer Spielberg. According to wikipedia, there is controversy regarding how much Hooper had to do with Poltergeist. Considering how good Poltergeist is, and how inept his next movie, Lifeforce is (and considering how minor Hooper's career has been since), I don't see any way he directed Poltergeist.

Such a wonderful film, every time you think you've got the handle on it they throw in something new that totally takes you by surprise. I can see why it wasn't a success (partly I think because of the useless eye-over-Earth poster, you have a film with the gorgeous naked Mathilda May, apocalyptic London and huge spaceships and you don't put them on the poster? Indeed most of the advertising art for Lifeforce seems to be for a different film altogether and never appears on screen) but surely it deserved to be?What's great about it? EVERYTHING! Mathilda May is just the most beautiful woman ever, she's sexier than Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and Eliza Dushku as the dominatrix and that's really saying something. On the whole the perversion in this mainstream film really has to be seen to be believed, Aubrey Morris as the Home Secretary seems to be constantly salivating over it all like the customer at a porno show and you feel that many in the audience will be feeling the same way. Amidst exploding zombie corpses and naked spacegirls constructed from her victim's blood the scene that really stands out to you is the heroes slapping the beautiful red-headed nurse around for information but saying that's OK because she's 'an extreme masochist' and is loving every second of it. Even in today's world of extreme gorno I don't think you'd get away with that any more in a mainstream film (interesting rewatching that scene and looking at the posters on the wall behind her, her as a little girl being hugged by her father and a sticker saying 'Head over heels in love'?). Some great performances from Peter Firth (Colonel Caine, SAS)and Frank Finlay (obstensibly a bio-chemist but his real interest is death), watching these characters dealing best they can with a situation totally beyond their control. A few great lines of dialogue and some wonderful set-pieces, absolutely love Caine heroically fighting his way through zombie infested London to Henry Mancini's amazing orchestral score to save the day and Carlsen's valiant act of self-sacrifice (again, the last thing you're expecting, you think he'll stab her but it's a shock when he impales himself too).Many questions that are never really answered. Are Carlsen and the spacegirl dead or are they preserved in the spaceship crystal coffins as before? What happened to all the human souls, did they go free, are they trapped on the ship or have they been used to revive the vampire race? Was Fallada genuinely trying to help Caine stop the vamps or was he leading him astray knowing that he was going to try to drain him? Where did he get the sword and how did he know how to use it? All told it will never win any Oscars but it is truly fantastic in every sense of the word.