Hello folks, and welcome back to yet another Marvelous Videos scary movie video. We have something even more interesting and fascinating for you in today’s video. For us, we have got a little bit of science fiction and a little bit of horror. To top it off, it is a British production. Lifeforce is the title of the film, which was released in 1985. Tobe Hooper, who we all know and adore from the Texas Chain Saw Massacre film series, directed the film.
It is based on Colin Wilson’s British science fiction horror novel The Space Vampires, which was published in 1976. As a result, the film was not released until nine years later. It is worth noting that before Don Jacoby and Dan O’Bannon were engaged to create the script, at least eight drafts had already been produced.
The film’s initial runtime with the Director’s cut was 2 hours and 8 minutes, but due to a lot of censorship for its US release, it had to be trimmed down to 1 hour and 56 minutes.
The amount of effort put into making this a fascinating and engaging picture is quite remarkable. You are in for a thrilling ride. The film is about Vampires who have arrived from outer space and features a stellar ensemble. That much is obvious from the novel’s title. However, there are numerous other incidents depicted in the film.
What are these space vampires’ objectives? Do they intend to pay a visit to our planet? So, without further ado, let us dig right into the strange, disturbing, and sci-fi effects that occur throughout the film.
In the blink of an eye, the terror begins – Lifeforce (1985)
So, the film begins with a look at the space shuttle called Churchill. If you are thinking about Britain, that is right! The name of this space shuttle was in fact taken from the former English Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill. With a joint crew of British and America, we find that they are on a mission to do some research on the Halley’s Comet.
So, while the crew is researching, they stumble upon a 150-mile long spaceship hidden in Halley’s Comet. Yeah, who would not be intrigued if they found a spaceship this huge? So, under the command of Colonel Tom Carlsen, who is played by Steve Railsback, they decide to check out this mysterious spaceship.
You would not believe that the model for this alien spaceship actually was an artichoke. Well, inspiration sure can come from bizarre places.
Now, the crew finds literally hundreds of dead bat-like creatures along with three naked humanoid bodies, two male and one female, inside of glass containers. This sure looks pretty weird and scary. They decide to take the three bodies back to Earth with them.
Oh, but something quite unexpected happens just then. Back on Earth, the mission control has lost all contact with Churchill and they are completely in the dark about the situation. So, a rescue mission is sent out to space to investigate. You will not believe how they found Churchill. So, it looks like the entire ship was burned from the inside, and burned pretty bad. All the crew members have now become burnt skeletons and to top it all, even the escape pods are missing.
Now, you would think that those three glass containers would be destroyed as well. But in fact, that is the only thing that is completely intact, as if the fire never touched it. The rescue team then takes the three humanoid pods with them back to Earth. They are then taken to the European Space Research Centre in London.
The actual horrifying and insanely scary things are now about to happen very soon.
Remember there were two male bodies and a female body. So, right before the doctor is about to perform an autopsy on the female body, the unexpected happens. She wakes up and literally drains the life out of that doctor. The doctor’s body now looks exactly like those burnt crew members found on Churchill.
Obviously, she was not going to stay at that facility, and soon she escapes from there and begins draining the life force of other humans. That is when we find out about her ability to shapeshift. Oh, these three vampires are definitely bad news for the world. We now, meet Colonel Colin Caine, played by Peter Firth, who works for the Special Air Service. He is sent to investigate this whole vampire situation.
Now, Dr. Hans Fallada, who is played by Frank Finlay, tells Colonel Caine how these vampires got here. Deadly information about them is that, they apparently need the life force from others in order to survive. The fun is just about to begin because now the other two male vampires have also woken up and escaped the facility.
On the other hand, now, it looks like the doctor whom the female vampire had attacked, is somehow suddenly awake. He attracts the doctor standing next to him and sucks the life force out of him to revive himself. It would appear that these vampires have the ability to attract those around them so that they can successfully drain their life force.
So, after locking up the doctor who has now been turned into a vampire, they observe his behaviors to figure out what to expect from the other three vampires. That is when Dr.Fallada realizes that these infected vampires need a human life force in every two hours in order to survive. And guess what, if they don’t get the life force that they need, then their body just explodes into a pile of dust.
Now, if you remember that the rescuers were not able to find any escape pods back on Churchill. Well, the team now receives information that in Texas, an escape pod from Churchill has been found with Colonel Carlsen inside it. Upon talking to him, he tells Dr.Fallada and Colonel Caine exactly what took place inside Churchill.
Apparently, after they got the aliens on their ship, they slowly started draining out the life force of pretty much all the crew members. They did find out in their research that they were all vampires, but soon Colonel Carlsen was the only one who was left alive. So, he set fire to the spaceship in order to prevent them from reaching Earth and went into the escape pod.
It looks like Carlsen is having dreams about the female vampire, that she is sucking the life force out of him. He starts to think that this could be happening because there is some kind of a connection or a psychic link between him and the female space vampire.
Now, after a session of hypnotherapy with Dr.Fallada, they all were able to pretty much narrow down the location of the female vampire. And find out that she is in a psychiatric hospital in Yorkshire. But as if that trouble was not enough, we also see the vampire spaceship from Halley’s Comet now heading towards Earth.
So, after leaving the body of a nurse, it turns out that the female vampire has taken control of the hospital’s manager, Dr. Armstrong. Carlsen and Colonel Caine then sedate Dr. Armstrong in order to trap the female vampire inside him. She now talks to them through Dr. Armstrong’s body and tells them things that no one could have ever guessed.
She reveals to everyone that they were all actually bats. But when Carlsen and his crew came inside their spaceship, they read their minds and turned their external look to be that of a human. So, basically, the face and structure of the female vampire that everyone sees are actually from her imagination of Carlsen and not her real form.
Okay, wow, that news will surely catch anybody off guard. Now, while all of this is happening in Yorkshire, Caine realizes that this in fact is just a ploy cooked up by the vampires in order to keep all of them away from London. So that, in the meantime, the two male vampires can attack the rest of the city and transform everyone into beings just like them.
Carlsen then confesses to Caine that he did feel compelled to open the container of the female vampire and share his life force with her. Well, at least now we know why it happened. Taking a look at London, we see pretty much the majority of the people affected at this point, and chaos covers the entire city.
Things are just about to turn for the worst in the film when, the life forces absorbed by the male vampires are being channeled to the female vampire so that she can transmit the accumulated energy to their spaceship, which by the way, is now in geosynchronous orbit over London. Everyone sure is running out of time now.
So, Dr.Falladad successfully kills one of the male vampires with the help of an ancient weapon of “leaded iron”. He then tells Carlsen and Caine his theory, that perhaps the creatures have visited Earth on a regular basis with the arrival of Halley’s Comet, and that is how the vampire legends were created. Sadly, even he ends up getting affected, so he gives the weapon to Caine.
Kudos to Carlsen because he tracks down the female vampire at the St. Paul’s Cathedral, where she is currently lying on the altar and sends all the energy to her spaceship. Much to Carlsen’s surprise, she discloses that they have always been a part of each other due to the sharing of their life forces, and that is how they also share their psychic bond. So, could this also mean that if she dies even, he will die?
Well, in the meantime, Caine kills off the other male vampire as well. And with the help of the same weapon, Carlsen stabs the female vampire. After this, a whole burst of energy is released from her body and the top of the St. Paul’s Cathedral blows off. Now, remember the vampire spaceship which was approaching? Well, of course, it changes the course of their direction and heads back to the Halley’s Comet.
That sure was an explosive ending to the movie. Now, let us dive into exploring the main antagonist of the sci-fi horror film Lifeforce.
The Female Space Vampire
We have to give it to Hooper for creating such an interesting character, with all her abilities. Her spacecraft was found hidden in the tail of Halley’s Comet by the HMS Churchill, as we all know. The female space vampire is played by the brilliant German actress Mathilda May. Oh, and guess what, in the film, she is never given a name. Everyone simply calls her the female vampire. Her character can also be called the princess of the space vampires.
Throughout the course of the entire film, the female space vampire is presented to us pretty much completely naked. Most actresses from the UK would not have been able to perform such kind of a role. Not many people know this, but that is exactly why casting someone for the role of the female vampire was extremely difficult because it came with its fair share of nudity.
At the time when May auditioned for the role, she only had one previous acting experience. But Hooper realized that no one could pull off this character better than her. May was also a ballerina, which went on to prove quite effective for her being cast for this role.
It was as if she had a special relationship with her body, and that is exactly what this role required. Although later on in an interview, she did tell her fans that even though she was initially quite embarrassed, she got used to it pretty quickly but she would not prefer to do it again.
Now, we are aware that the female space vampire has quite a lot of powers and abilities. She sure is intelligent enough to use them as and when required based on the situation she finds herself in. One such extremely handy and useful power of hers is definitely the ability to shapeshift. She was able to fool Colonel Caine and the rest of the team for a very long time by using this very power.
It goes without saying that she of course is immortal, and also holds the power of telepathy. That is probably how she linked herself to Tom Carlsen. But doing that might have turned out bad for her because Carlsen was smart enough to use his psychic link against her. And discovered her exact locations, which certainly helped Caine to save the day.
Energy absorption is most probably her essential power because she needs that in order to stay alive. We all saw what happens to these vampires when they don’t absorb the life force. Well, along with all these powers, it is safe to say that there does exist a weapon that can indeed end their lives. And that is the leaded iron weaponry.
Well, you will be surprised to find out that Lifeforce was originally scheduled for a short period of 17 weeks, but it ended up going five weeks over. That sure shows us the level of dedication towards making this film that director Tobe Hooper. An amazing film for one of your weekly horror cravings. So, what are you waiting for, make sure to watch Lifeforce as soon as possible? You do not want to miss out on all the fun from outer space back to Earth.
Well, with that, guys, we have come to the end of another thrilling video. We hope you enjoyed watching it. Make sure to smash that subscribe button, and hit the like button on your way out, so that we can keep bringing more such videos to you. Also, comment down below your take on this film. Until then everyone, stay safe and have a great day ahead!