Monday, September 19, 2022

Lifeforce (1985)

 Schlocky Isreali producing cousins Golan & Globus hire horror movie maven Tobe Hooper for an adaptation of a book titled 'The Space Vampires', and still spring for Henri Mancini and the London Symphony Orcheatra. A joint British\American space mission finds a derelict ship behind Halley's comet, and inside it some perfect looking bodies in suspended animation. Bringing them back to Earth proves to be a mistake.

Like a bigger budgeted Roger Corman production, 'Lifeforce' features some trippy special effects, droll pacing and the stunning body of 20 year old French actress Mathilda May in her screen debut. This movie is an extremly odd blend of styles, everything from Disney's 'The Black Hole', to 'Return of the Living Dead', to a dry British police procedural, to 'Ghostbusters', to the George Pal version of 'War of the Worlds'. It's B movie bad but also ambitious, slow but ocassionaly arrrsting, strangely earnest and persistently cheesy. *1/2

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