Lifeforce (1985) – Review

There are movies you watch and think, “Wow, that was tight, coherent, and thematically rich.” And then there’s Lifeforce, a movie where you watch a fully nude space woman suck people’s souls out through their faces, and you think, “What in the actual hell is going on, and why am I kind of into it?”

Based on the 1976 novel “The Space Vampires” by Colin Wilson, Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce is a film like no other: a cosmic ballet of space vampires, apocalyptic London, science fiction excess, and a level of gonzo ambition so grand that its reach wildly exceeds its grasp. Released in 1985, this Cannon Films production represents a singular collision of genre filmmaking, high-concept storytelling, and pure cinematic madness. It’s part horror, part science fiction, part disaster epic, and part metaphysical fever dream. That it exists at all is remarkable. That it was made with a big budget and serious intent, even more so.

What’s not to love about space vampires?

So, the movie starts in space. Good start. The crew of the space shuttle Churchill, under the command of Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), while investigating Halley’s Comet, find a 150-mile-long derelict alien spaceship that simply screams, “Don’t go in there!” Inside are some large shrivelled space bats, but more importantly, three naked humans in glass coffins, two guys and one very naked French woman (Mathilda May), who the movie lovingly zooms in on every five minutes just to remind us that she is, indeed, very naked. They decide to bring these specimens back to Earth because that’s what you do with mysterious alien corpses.

“In space, no one can hear your heavy breathing.”

When the Churchill returns to Earth, surprise, surprise, the entire crew is found dead, presumably due to an onboard fire. But the three alien specimens are all hunky-dory. Which is not a good sign. Obviously, the lady wakes up first, smoulders at a guard, then sucks the life energy out of him like a sexy Dyson vacuum cleaner, and casually struts out of the top-secret facility in her birthday suit, leaving behind a bunch of dehydrated corpses who explode if you look at them too hard. SAS Colonel Colin Caine (Peter Firth) is brought in to investigate the matter and track down the missing alien. And from there, the movie just gets weirder.

Damn, another soul-sucking monster.

Re-enter Colonel Tom Carlsen, the only survivor of the original mission. He crash-lands a pod back on Earth and spends the rest of the movie shirtless, sweaty, and screaming about how he’s psychically linked to the nude vampire lady because she… possessed his soul with space lust? Sure. We then get a weird procedural involving British scientists, military types, and Patrick Stewart in a glorified cameo where he gets possessed, slapped, and kissed by Railsback. Yep, Captain Picard gets tongue-tackled by a sweaty man screaming about love and death. You don’t forget a scene like that. You may try, but you won’t.

The Final Frontier of Horror!

Also, there’s a whole side plot—if you can call a swirling hurricane of exposition and weirdness a “plot”—involving hypnosis, a girl possessed by the alien queen, soul-swapping via intense eye contact, and the two naked space dudes playing intergalactic musical chairs by leaping into the bodies of unsuspecting security guards. Just when you think you’ve got a grip on what’s happening, the movie hits you with a lore dump: apparently, these space vampires have been around for eons, seeding our myths and legends like cosmic PR agents for Dracula. Somewhere in the chaos, it’s revealed that the energy being sucked from humans is funnelled by the male vampires to their queen, who then transmits it to their giant bat-shaped spaceship currently just… hovering in geosynchronous orbit over London like it’s waiting for a decent parking spot.

Maybe it will get stuck in one of London’s notorious roundabouts. 

But wait, there’s more! The only way to kill these creatures? Not holy water, not a simple stake to the heart, but a very specific iron shaft, and it’s gotta be iron! Dr. Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay) deduces that a thrust exactly two inches below the sternum will do the trick. Why? Because… reasons. The movie says so, and by this point, you’re not arguing. You’re just holding on for dear life as Lifeforce barrels ahead with the confidence of a drunk magician pulling flaming rabbits out of a top hat. It’s convoluted, it’s nonsensical, and it’s kind of incredible how committed the film is to all of it.

I guess space vampires are too good for wooden stakes.

By the third act, London is in flames. Literally. The city is overrun with life-sucked zombies, blue energy orbs are shooting out of people’s mouths like demonic hairballs, and it’s basically the apocalypse as directed by a guy trying to finish shooting before the pub closes. But you’ve got to give Hooper credit; when this movie goes off the rails, it stays off the rails. It doesn’t just derail; it jackknifes off a cliff, flips the bird to logic, and keeps going. It buys property off the rails. It has no interest in tying up plot threads or explaining who’s possessed, naked, or exploding into energy anymore. At this point, Hooper’s just flinging spectacle at the screen like a horror-themed Jackson Pollock. Is it a mess? Oh, absolutely. But it’s a glorious, committed mess, like watching a madman juggle fire and chainsaws while quoting Shakespeare. You can’t look away.

“Look, she’s your girlfriend, you deal with it.”

The climax involves Carlsen finding the Space Girl (still nude, still glowing), who’s now living in the crypt of St. Paul’s Cathedral, turning London into an intergalactic soul fountain. It’s here where she drops the bombshell, apparently, she and Carlsen are now soul-smashed into one cosmic mess, thanks to a little life-force swapping. Meanwhile, Caine takes out the other male vampire and hurls a psychic space-sword to Carlsen, who doesn’t hesitate. He runs himself and his cosmic girlfriend through in one dramatic stab. Boom goes the extraterrestrial dynamite, as a massive energy explosion blows the top off St. Paul’s like a soda can. Then, in a beam of sparkly doom-love, the two float skyward back to the alien ship, which promptly turns around and heads for the comet. Caine just stands there, probably wondering if any of that actually happened.

Metaphorically profound or just extremely Freudian? Possibly both.

Stray Observations:

• The idea of astronauts exploring an alien ship and discovering a beautiful female “survivor” who turns out to be a vampire is also the plot of the classic film Queen of Blood.
• The astronauts find a spaceship in Halley’s Comet and immediately go poking around inside, because in space exploration, touching random alien things is always the best idea.
• Matilda May spends 90% of the movie walking around nude and 100% of it completely owning the screen. Somehow, she manages to be ethereal, terrifying, and hypnotic, with almost no dialogue.
• The dummies used as desiccated corpses were later used in the 1999 remake of The Mummy. It’s nice to hear that those terrifying props found a good home.
• Dr. Hans Fallada is the one to figure out how to kill these space vampires by impaling them with leaded iron, but we never learn why he has an ancient sword in his lab.
• The grand finale involves psychic sex, sword violence, and a beam of glowing soul light. This is the only way to end a movie like Lifeforce. Anything less would be a betrayal.

It also has pretty cool-looking space vampires.

On the surface, Lifeforce is a pulpy horror/sci-fi blend. But dig deeper, and you’ll find an array of themes that suggest a much more cerebral intent, however clumsily executed. The “space vampires” are not just literal energy-draining aliens; they’re stand-ins for metaphysical questions of life force, sexuality, identity, and the soul. The film plays with Jungian dualities—masculine and feminine, life and death, reason and instinct. There are hints of big ideas floating around: sexual obsession, life force as a metaphor for desire, psychic connection as identity loss, but they’re mostly background noise to the main attraction: space vampires blowing up London.

A wonderful vampiric blitz.

On the acting side of things, we have Steve Railsback as the heroic astronaut, delivering a performance that suggests he’s being controlled by an alien, or possibly a director who just shouted “More! Louder! Sweatier!” at every take. His psychic bond with the space vampire lady (referred to simply as “Space Girl,” because sure) leads to several long monologues about how “She’s inside me… she’s calling to me,” delivered with all the subtlety of a man trying to pass a kidney stone during a thunderstorm.

“And the award for Sweatiest Performance goes to…”

But it’s Mathilda May who deserves the lion’s share of credit for fully committing to a role that, on paper, sounds completely ridiculous: walk around naked, stare intensely like a seductive space vampire cat, and occasionally whisper in eerie, echo-laden tones like she’s trapped inside a haunted cathedral. And yet, against all odds, she pulls it off with an almost supernatural conviction. She manages to bring way more menace and presence than most modern horror villains get with double the budget and half the subtlety. No fancy effects, no elaborate backstory, just pure, raw creepiness that sticks with you. Honestly, she makes Nosferatu look like a kitten. Eat your heart out.

Note: Colin Wilson, the author of the original book, “The Space Vampires”, very much disliked the film, with his verdict being “Well, at least there’s lots of full-frontal nudity.”

The effects, supervised by John Dykstra (of Star Wars fame), are often spectacular. The vampire victims crumple into dry, twitching corpses that explode in showers of glowing blue energy. The alien spacecraft is a glorious mix of Gigeresque architecture and crystalline weirdness. The scenes of London getting wrecked? Surprisingly effective. You can feel the budget, back when practical effects meant someone spent hours building a life-size alien bat instead of adding it in post. Not to mention the desiccated corpses, which are pure nightmare fuel. The ending sequence, with spectral souls floating over London and the psychic lovers levitating inside St. Paul’s Cathedral, is nothing short of operatic absurdity.

Visually, it’s quite an impressive take on a vampire apocalypse. 

In conclusion, Lifeforce is a cinematic Frankenstein, a patchwork of genres, tones, and themes stitched together with cosmic duct tape. It’s overloaded, overacted, overwrought, and often ridiculous. But it’s also bold, strange, and visually stunning. There’s nothing else like it. Watching Lifeforce is like flipping between a classy BBC sci-fi drama, a Hammer horror movie, and a softcore alien erotica channel, all while listening to Henry Mancini conduct a space opera.