‘Lifeforce’
Cannon Group, 1985

starring: Steve Railsback, Patrick Stewart, Peter Firth and Mathilda May
directed by: Tobe Hooper

the plot: During an exploratory mission, the space shuttle Churchill picks up a strange object lurking behind Haley’s Comet. Col. Tom Carlsen (Railsback) and his crew investigate and find a 150-mile long alien spacecraft, which contains what appears to be three perfectly preserved human bodies. Carlsen brings the bodies back to the Churchill, even though he senses something is wrong. When the shuttle makes it back to earth, the crew is dead, Carlsen is missing and the ship’s only occupants are the three mysterious bodies. At a British research facility, one of the bodies, a stunningly beautiful woman (May), springs to life and starts draining the life force from everyone in the room. She escapes the facility and begins murdering people throughout London. The prime minister calls in Col. Caine (Firth) to find her—but before he can get started, Carlsen returns to Earth and spins an apocalyptic tale of space vampires and psychic control. More desiccated bodies, drained of their life force, start turning up, and Carlsen and Caine must race to find the woman before she destroys all of London.

why it’s good: “Lifeforce” is an epic mix of science-fiction, horror and action that rarely lets up. Also, the drop-dead gorgeous May spends half the film running around totally naked, which means that even if the rest of the movie were horrible, it would still be totally watchable. Railsback and Firth carry the film nicely, and Patrick Stewart turns in a nice cameo as an unwitting victim of one of the space vampires. Hooper keeps the tension up throughout, subtly building up the film from a claustrophobic fear-fest to an all-out, end-of-the-world shocker. Composer Henry Mancini (best known for the music in “The Pink Panther” and “Peter Gunn”) provides a hard-driving score, conducted by the London Symphony Orchestra. There’s also plenty of jump scares and neat gore, including a choice scene in which the blood sucked from two bodies hangs in mid-air and assumes the shape of the sultry May.

why you should own it: Sci-fi and horror fans should definitely have “Lifeforce” in their collections. MGM’s DVD edition is light on extras, but does restore about 15 minutes of footage cut from the U.S. theatrical release.