——Lifeforce——

This movie is a classic example of what happens when you try to do too many things at one time. Lifeforce has so many twists and turns and side plots that the movie becomes pretty much incomprehensible. It also thinks of itself as a serious movie, which detracts from a lot of moments that could have been really fun. All in all, this movie is a giant mess–the writing is horrible, the pacing is a mess, and there’s not enough good horror moments to make everything else worth while. That said, there are a few reasons to watch this movie.

If you gather together a big group of friends and give them some booze promising a good Mystery Science Theater 3000 movie, then you will probably have a really good time watching this train wreck. Why? Just trying to figure out what the hell is going on is a party game unto itself. The movie starts out with some astronauts finding a spaceship hidden at the front of Halley’s Comet, which of course they enter only to find bizarre bat-like creatures and naked people, which, of course, they bring back on board. That’s the “Alien” section of the movie. Then the movie cuts to six months later when the British Space Program (yeah, you read that right) finds the space ship orbiting the planet with apparently no survivors, other than the three naked people they took from the ship. They are space vampires that need to suck out human souls in order to survive.

The lead vampire is an extremely attractive woman who spends almost the entire movie in the nude. Twice she does have clothes on, but they don’t stay on for long. This is the point of the movie where everything starts making little sense. She escapes, but not before sucking the life out of some people. They shrivel up and die, but two hours later their corpses come back to life and look for another soul to suck up for themselves. If they don’t get a fresh soul they quickly have a heart attack or something and die again. If they do get a soul they turn back to normal, but if they don’t get another soul in two hours, they shrivel up again and explode. I really liked the self-exploding vampire concept, but they didn’t stay with it for long. Instead the female vampire starts jumping from body to body so that they can’t find her. Then one of the astronauts is found in an escape pod. He somehow can see what she sees. He goes crazy. There are flashbacks and false flashbacks. Patrick Stewart makes a brief appearance as the head of a mental institution (don’t ask), becomes possessed, kisses a guy, screams a lot, and then spits out his blood which becomes the image of the female vampire. (It helps if you just turn your brain off around this point.)

Meanwhile London has been infested by vampires, although they seemed to me more like the zombies of 28 Days Later, but whatever. One of the scientists figures out that old accounts of vampires were real and then comes out of nowhere with this weird sword thing they can use to kill them. The movie spirals out of control and then ends (with, I think, the humans winning).

Tobe Hooper, director of the amazing Texas Chainsaw Massacre and then nothing else good, directed this movie. This movie is no exception to the not good rule. Maybe if it focused a little more on one thing or another it would have been really awesome, but as it is it just wanders around from one plot point to the next as if they just made up the story as they went along. It’s not exactly garbage, but I found myself bored enough to warrant such a bad opinion of it. Again, unless you got a bunch of drunk friends with you, or you’re just a glutton for bad movies, stay away.

(C-)