Disclaimer: Contains spoilers!
Plot Summary: While studying Hailey's Comet, astronauts discover a seemingly derelict spacecraft belonging to alien vampires.
Review: This is definitely on the list of forgotten gems from the '80s. Sure, there are plenty of cornball moments and nonsensical plot tangents, but the effects are great and the apocalyptic scope of the story is awesome. Besides, it is nearly impossible to go wrong with a hot, naked alien chick bent on destroying the world! I'm not surprised that this bombed at release, but it's good that there is a growing appreciation for this film's merits. One of the main hindrances of any success was that "Lifeforce" is not faithful to the source material, the novel it was based upon. I never read the book so I don't know how much it deviates, however, it doesn't help when the author comes out against the film. Nevertheless, from the perspective of the film alone, we are presented with a unique and original experience enhanced by solid pacing and an epic music score.
At a glance, the mix of vampires, aliens, and a take over the world scheme seems like it wouldn't work. For the most part, they pulled it off. The story focuses on a guy named Carlsen, the commander of a crew that was studying Hailey's Comet. In the tail of the comet is a massive alien ship that has seemingly been adrift for an unknown amount of time. This alien ship is semi-organic and the aliens themselves are bat-like creatures with the exception of three humanoids kept in a state of suspended animation. Over time, the aliens have died and become husks which leaves only the remaining three as the last of their kind. Later on, the three human-like aliens are brought to Earth after Carlsen and his crew are seemingly found burned alive on their spacecraft. Of course the aliens awake, escape, and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting UK. Instead of drinking blood, these aliens drain your soul or--you guessed it--your life force. In the process, you become like them, and you too must feed on other people's life forces or else you die. It's worth mentioning that the changed humans are more zombie-ish than vampires though. Also, the main three aliens can only be killed by iron, for whatever reason, while changed humans can die to anything on hand.
But the fun doesn't stop there as the female alien begins a process of consuming all the energy of the world. The aliens summon their ship to approach Earth's orbit in order to extract the collected life forces of the humans they feed on. Simply referred to as the "space girl," the female alien is played by Mathilda May. Obviously she is one of the main highlights of the film since she is practically always naked. Actually, her character is interesting since her motivations are ambiguous. The three human-like aliens really are bat-like underneath the skin, but they can warp their form based on whatever race they come into contact with. When it comes to Carlsen, the space girl claims she molded her form based on a subconscious desire from Carlsen's mind. It's never clear if she's simply playing Carlsen or that they did establish a connection deeper than love together--a bond at the spiritual level. I like this angle to the story as it opens up a lot of potential and speculation. Then there is the fact that she claims Carlsen is similar to the aliens. I'm not sure if that means he has a trace of their blood within him? After all, there is the entire subplot that these aliens are what vampire legends were based from. For all we know, maybe some aliens escaped the ship to Earth over the centuries and bred with humans.
Yet another instance where it's hard to find a non-topless shot!
I got this whole "Parasite Eve" feeling (the movie not the game) throughout, and, in fact, there are quite a few anime that appear to have been been inspired by "Lifeforce;" for example, "Kimera" comes to mind. Maybe I'm overestimating the romance subplot, but they do stress Carlsen's mysterious connection to the space girl and their longing to be together. By the end, I did want to see Carlsen and this chickadee get together, but she is destroying the world so Carlsen kills the two of them while they're embracing. But did they really die? If anything, it appeared the two were put back into suspended animation with the energy they managed to collect being sufficient to sustain them for god knows how long. We could have probably used another minute or two added to the ending for true closure.
Okay, real talk here! If the girl/guy of your dreams existed but was perpetually soaked in blood, would that be a deal-breaker?
As for the film's faults, I might as well continue on with the ending. It's too rushed and makes no sense. Why didn't the space girl die? Was it because of her connection to Carlsen or because they were directly merging with the collected life force? What was the end game anyway? Consume everyone on Earth and move on? No wonder these fools were practically extinct. The powers and limitations of the aliens didn't fully make sense. I felt they were trying to get too philosophical with the concepts of the mind and spirit that it stopped making sense. For example, if the space girl merged her mind with Carlsen to look idyllic for him, why were there two male aliens? Sure, there were two women on Carlsen's crew, but why didn't they have this spiritual bond then with the male aliens? They could have cleared this up by simply clarifying whether Carlsen was part alien or not. I mean, he even says the alien ship feels familiar. Yes, I get that it may have been subtle, but nothing else is subtle about this movie. Besides this incoherence in the plot, there are a few times when the editing is shoddy as hell. They did go through multiple cuts for this film, which is understandable, but it is a noticeable flaw during numerous scenes.
Although certain plot lines could have been tightened, especially in regard to Carlsen and the space girl's alleged romance, I think '80s fans will appreciate what this film was trying to display. More so, this is a memorable sci-fi film in general that all fans of the genre should investigate for themselves. If you check out the trailer, you will feel the epic nature of the story which should help you decide whether to proceed. Keep in mind that you should seek out an unedited version as you will want to experience the full presentation intact. Overall, this is a fun film loaded with creative ideas and imagination. There are a lot of flaws that can boggle down the final impression, and the ending is lackluster, but I still feel a viewer will not be disappointed.
Notable Moment: When Carlsen kisses Patrick Stewart's character. Anything for a little Picard action, right?
Final Rating: 6.5/10
Excellent review. Let me address some points:
ReplyDelete- I recall reading somewhere that one of the original twists proposed was Carlsen being revealed to be a space vampire. This would explains some things (Carlsen feeling like he was already been on the alien ship before, Space Girl specifically targeting him while killing the rest of the crew aboard the Churchill as well as the whole psychic bond between them). To bad that it kind of contradict the rest of the movie.
- According to an interview with Bill Malin, one of the male vampires, the crew ran out of money and left several (and allegedly vital) scenes on the limbo. The rushed ending and the film's overall disjointed nature, even in the 116 minutes cut, can be attributed to that.
- About the ending, I occur the Space Girl didn't die. She was simply "stopped" by Carlsen and when forced back to the spaceship along with him. On this point I feel like sharing a theory I agree with: the alien spaceship is the real villain of the piece and the vampires merely extensions of it. As such, after the two males vampires were killed and Carlsen put an end to Space Girl's rampage, the spaceship aborted the mission, teleported both of them back into the vessel along with all the life force recollected and then returned to the comet.
Of course, this is just a theory and maybe I'm putting too much thought on it. But I see no harm in sharing it, so yeah.
Well, I think we can definitely conclude that Carlsen was at least part-alien due to all the hints. The only other alternative was that the space girl was creating a psychic link to Carlsen long before the movie began...which seems unlikely. I don't think this revelation would contradict the plot since we could draw a few conclusions. Maybe an escape pod went to Earth and established a bloodline of mixed alien/humans long ago. It's a stretch, but it could work. Maybe a sequel could have went into more detail.
ReplyDeleteAs for the organic ship...I suppose it's possible. The aliens' technology certainly is more magical than scientific at least from our human perspective. Maybe the ship could have been a separate entity. Again, that is something that could have been fleshed out in a sequel. After all, the ship was either being controlled psychically or had an AI piloting it so advanced the ship might have been "alive" in a different way. I mostly chalked a lot of these inconsistencies up to the fact that when you blend fantasy and science fiction together it doesn't always make sense.
Indeed. The film does seem to make a point to imply Carlsen's connection with the aliens goes deeper than just his psychic bond with the Space Girl and it does it in a surprisingly subtle way, unlike anything else in the movie. On second thought, the revelation about Carlson's true nature as a space vampire wouldn't have came out of the left field like I previously assumed.
ReplyDeleteI haven't thought that way but you're right, the alien vampires do seem to employ powers seem more magical in nature than technological. Perhaps this was done to explain the lore of the film that claims that our vampire myths of yore were inspired by early visits of the aliens? I'd think so.
As for the ship, it could be "alive" in the same sense as other evil spacecrafts are, such as the eponymous vessel from Event Horizon. I picture it having some kind of simplistic AI whose only objective is to harvest life force by any means necessary.
Yup, I do think they were trying to merge horror and sci-fi to explain the vampire myths of the past. I mean, you have that gothic vibe, shape-shifting, the bats, draining energy, appearing in dreams, seduction, etc. Even using iron to kill them is old school. I like this approach, but this genre-blending is probably why audiences in the '80s didn't like it.
ReplyDeleteThe ship really is kind of an afterthought by the writers. Even if it was completely designed to harvest energy, it begs the question of how did these aliens become adrift to begin with? How could a parasitic species exist long enough to become space-fairing without hosts? Unless they didn't start out that way or they stole the ship from someone else. There is a lot we could speculate about since we don't have all the answers. We seriously could have used a sequel but that's never happening.
The novel kind of explains it. Kinda.
ReplyDeleteFrom what I could gather, in the novel the space vampires were originally a race that somehow became trapped in a wormhole. Unable to move during the ordeal, the stronger members used their psychic powers to cannibalize the weaker members, absorbing their life forces to survive, until the space girl and her two males companions were the only ones left. As such, all the bat husks found aboard the ship were the weak that became food for the strong. That's what happened in the novel anyway, we don't really know if it can be still be applied to the movie.
Well yeah, we may never get a sequel but at some point there were two adaptations based on the works: One by Ringleader Studios announced in 2013 and based on the novel and another one by Chiller TV based on the movie that was supposed to come out last year. Sadly, I can't find any updates on either projects so chances are they fell into development hell.
Thanks for the information since I haven't (and probably won't ever) read the book. However, I don't think it fully explains everything if we are to believe Carlsen has a connection to the space girl. I will keep an eye out for any possible sequels, but I doubt they will ever come about. Plenty of sequels have fallen into indefinite development hell. Considering the original bombed, I don't imagine many producers wanting to invest in sequels to a 30 year old property that was never popular to begin with. With that said...I'd still love for a sequel to happen though!
ReplyDeleteI did a bit more of research and found out a (kinda) definitive explanation of Carlsen's deal. It seems that in the novel, the space girl specifically chose Carlsen as a new lifeforce gatherer and eventually the replacement for the two male vampires after they were killed without much fanfare. Carlsen kills the space girls at the end of the novel as he wasn't too keen on being a life-sucking monstrosity for all eternity.
ReplyDeleteAnd... Well yeah, the movie was a box office bomb that did Tobe Hooper's Hollywood career in and contributed to Cannon Films finally going belly up in the early 90s. Still, it has a cult nowadays and is surprisingly popular in Europe and in Japan (Seriously, the 118 minutes version movie is aired once per year in Japanese antenna TV). A TV series, depending on how it's handled, wouldn't be that much of a waste and could even prove to be a runaway success.
Okay, now a TV show reboot I could definitely see happening. It would be new enough to lure in younger people while pulling in the fans of the film...assuming they did the story justice. I mean, there is plenty of room to expand that's for sure.
ReplyDeleteI think the space girl died along with Carlson in the end of the movie. They did turn into the same ball of light as everyone else and altough you see them ascending up to the ship in the next scene, I suppose these are not real boddies, but just a visualisation of their embraced souls (or life energy). And when you look realy carefully inside the coffins that materialize in the ship in the very end, there are children bodies inside, not adults. I guess they are supposed to be offspring of Carlson and the space girl.
ReplyDeleteWhat are you people talking about? The space girl told Carlson, in no uncertain terms; "he was one of them" (space creatures), that he was always meant to lead them to earth!
ReplyDeleteTo Bryan/Ryan - Allow me to disagree with you on this one - the fact that he was meant to lead them to Earth means his destiny was always to be a harbinger of death, not meaning he was their leader. Saying he was one of them was in fact her attempt to get laid :-) (like saying I am special, you are special - the American Pie stuff :-) ). Not knowing he was a wampire himself would make him a perfect covert agent indeed but it is highly improbable that he would not notice :-) with all their frequent need for life energy adn all. Plus as an astronaut he would have to pass many a test (blood, physical etc.) in NASA or ESA or whatever the agency was and as good as they could be in altering their bodies to human form, their chemistry would still have to be alien. Plus he was not too fond of the idea of letting her destroy the earth population and impaled the both of them in the end, I guess not being able to live without her (which I totally get with those huge beautiful ... eyes of hers :-) )
ReplyDeleteJust an afterthought - even though he said that he had the feeling he was on the ship before, I do not think it necessarily means he was one of the them - the girls subconsciousness just reached for him as they entered the ship and thus he might have felt some familiarity with the environment. Being a vampire would mean he had to get to Earth on a previous fly-by and wait at least a century for what? His race to starve itself to death on a ship instead of harvesting the defenceless humans of that era?
ReplyDeleteIt would be plausible if he was a distant descendant (thus not knowing his heritage) of the vampire race, a part of the crew that chose to stay behind on Earth centuries ago, and now extinct.
But in the end the hints suggesting Carlsen being a vampire is nothing more than producers clumsy reference to an epiloque in the novel, where Carlsen discovers a way of prolonging his life via benevolent energy transference.
Even after all this years, I still can't get enough of this film. "Just an afterthought - even though he said that he had the feeling he was on the ship before, I do not think it necessarily means he was one of the them - the girls subconsciousness just reached for him as they entered the ship and thus he might have felt some familiarity with the environment."
ReplyDeleteI never thought of it in that way!