Rating: 
Summary: QUATERMASS AND THE COMET
Review: LIFEORCE is probally the only true science fiction film of the 1980s and if you've seen this film and dismissed it, you owe it to yourself to view it again. LIFEFORCE was an attempt by TOBE HOPPER and DAN O'BANNON to create the feel of the fantastic british science fiction films of the 1950s. Especially Hammer's Quatermass films, but also the dark and creepy films FIEND WITHOUT A FACE, THE CRAWLING EYE, and FIRST MAN INTO SPACE. Hopper and Bannon give us a fantastic tale that combines the mood and horror of those older films with the special effects of the 1980s. And don't forget this film has a terrific cast including Steve Railsback (Dwayne Barry from THE X-FILES) and Patrick Stewart (of STAR TREK). The story is one of the few truly original science fiction scripts of the 1980's. As where most movies from this genre ended up being horrible rip-offs of ALIEN, GREMLINS or STAR WARS, LIFEFORCE combinded several tride and true sci-fi concepts into and an entertaining and original piece that can hold up over 16 years later. Keep this in mind the next time you view this film and you will come out of the viewing with a greater appreciation for this terrific film. And check out the movies listed above that this film pays homage to.
Rating: 
Summary: Cheesy but entertaining!
Review: I once got to check out this movie on cable, the story centers around a beautiful looking space alien played by Mathilda May who plays her role throughout the movie in her birthday suit and she has an amazing body, who once awakened by spacemen who board her vessel from what seems like a chamber, she seduces them and kills them, then sets for earth where she continues on her vamping and killing spree, one of the policemen in her trail becomes infatuated with her against his better judgement, this makes for an interesting plot twist the movie climatic conclusion, don't look for Shakespeare here, but the story and scenery make it watchable and once again Mathilda May in her nude glory.
Rating:
Summary: No one but Ms May....
Review: ....could have played the vampire's part.This is a great B-movie. Space vampires, zombies and St Paul's Cathederal exploding! Well worth the price of a ticket. But speaking of the lovely Ms May, whatever happened to one of her seminal movies "La Teta y la luna" in the USA? Was it never released? In that movie, her, how to be delicate, ( let's say ) "physical presence" was absolutely the crux of the story.
Rating:
Summary: Wasted potential
Review: Lifeforce screamed forth as a potential classic. Fresh from his success with Poltergeist, director Tobe Hooper was given a script by Dan (Alien) OBannon and a decent amount of money to craft the sci fi/horror flick to end all sci fi/horror flicks: Vampires from space, hordes of the undead, the end of the world.....The finished product, however, was little more than a catalog of various grade B horror flicks from the past 50 years. The first half hour suggests that Lifeforce may indeed be the genre defining film it tried so hard to be: Good FX, creepy pace, a beautiful naked Vampire destroying people. But the script soon becomes too big for its own good. Too many sub-plots and ideas begin to throw the film out of focus. Surprisingly, it seems Tobe Hooper pulls back half way through and lets the FX tell the story. Had the filmkers limited their ambition to tell a very simple story, Lifeforce could have been awesome.
Rating: 
Summary: Blast From The Past
Review: Maybe you have to be the right age to appreciate this movie but for a teenager (as I was when I first saw it) it's a cool movie. Yes the nudity is a big part of the appeal but so, for an Englishman, is seeing London get trashed instead of some American city! What we have here is a £20m remake of "Quatermass & The Pit" with added blood and sex. You gotta love the vampires flying over London as balls of light, the streams of energy draining from people and pouring into St.Paul's cathedral, the dark and gloomy atmosphere and (most of all) Frank Finlay as a later-day Van Helsing! This IS a film with a sense of humour too so enjoy the jokes and the destruction and Matilda May's fine figure! A great saturday night movie!
Rating:
Summary: What A Vampiress!!
Review: I think "Lifeforce" is one of those strange cases where you wonder what kind of movie this is. Of course, it's a sci-fi flick, but it has certain elements of action and horror together in one single package. The movie centers around three space vampires whose leader is a beautiful young woman who appears naked most of the time during the film. Mathilda May is completely gorgeous, so perfect, you can fall in love with her and wish to be drained by her charming, yet horrendous, powers. What a vampiress!!! Too bad, she will only be remembered for this role. The vampiress creates chaos as she walks by the streets of London, and she has to run away from her hunters, especially Steve Railsback and Peter Firth. Railsback is terrible as Col. Tom Carlsen; he overacts so much by yelling everytime he can. Firth is quite good as Col. Colin Caine from the British Special Air Service; he's a good counterpart for Carlsen. Frank Finlay is terrific as Prof. Hans Fallada, the man who knows the mystery behind those alien visitors. And watch for Patrick Stewart as Dr. Armstrong, the manager of a madhouse who falls victim of the vampiress. Tobe Hooper made an interesting effort in creating such a crazy movie. I have to admit that some of the things shown in the movie are quite cheesy. But apart from Mathilda May, the finale is colossal, supported by Henry Mancini's fantastic musical score. The film is quite good, watchable, even though some parts are annoying, courtesy of Steve Railsback
Rating:
Summary: Makes Ben-Hur Look Like an Epic!
Review: You can imagine the scene back in the early eighties when Menaham Golan and Yoram Globus said to Tobe Hooper - "Here's $23 000 000, a book about space vampires destroying London by one of the most respected philosopher-cum-novelists of the twentieth century, special effects experts John Dykstra and Nick Maley, a gorgeous girl to play the lead space vampire and Henry Mancini is going to write one of the best scores of his later musical career. So if anything goes wrong we know who to blame." With all this in mind, Hooper's claim that he intended Lifeforce to be his Ben-Hur of the science fiction genre was greeted with great excitement by those of us who had read Colin Wilson's source novel and knew that with all the technical expertise on board it would take a director of monumental incompetence to mess things up. Oh well...... To be honest it's not entirely Hooper's fault that Lifeforce is such a misfire. The screenplay is just terrible, relying continually on characters providing vital pieces of plot information because they "just know", "just feel it" or sometimes with absolutely no explanation at all.. And still things fail to make sense. Steve Railsback's acting range consists of alternating his expression from one of "troubled" to "hopelessly constipated", making him a poor choice for Carlson, and Peter Firth doesn't have the edge to play a senior officer in the SAS. So watch this film for Nick Maley's great animatronic corpses, watch it for Mathilda May, watch it for that fantastic bombastic Mancini score, but most of all watch it and weep for what might have been a science-fiction-horror classic to rival Quatermass and the Pit if there had only been a bit more care where it mattered.
Rating:
Summary: In the blink of an eye, the fun begins!
Review: A striking blend of science fiction and horror, Lifeforce is like an old-fashioned Hammer film on steroids! The foreign release version (European?) on DVD is a vast improvement over the American theatrical release on VHS. The London Symphony Orchestra music in Dolby digital 5.1 stereo is reason enough to add this to your collection. The plot is ludicrous though and loaded with unintentional humor. At least all the money is on the screen!
Rating:
Summary: Should be in a standard sci-fi collection....
Review: This is one of the sci-fi films from the eighties that stands out to me. It seems to me that this film seems to be more concept-based than character-based, which is always a refreshing change. Many of the special effects, though, are dissapointing, even for 1985. The vampire-ghouls look and move more like freeze-dried muppets than like soul-eating horrors. Also, I can't decide whther to be happy or annoyed at my distraction every time the gorgeous Mathilda May appears. I will say this, though... usually when I watch a Vampire movie, I don't find myself lured by the seducitve female bloodsucker. May does a good job of being an effective evil temptation. I look at Railsback's character and figure... "heck, I don't blame the guy"
Rating: 
Summary: Calling It The SC-FI Equivalent of Ishtar Is Still Too Kind
Review: Talk about your cinematic debacles!! Man oh man does this film reek of the stench of god-awful quality oblivion, I've seen many films in my day but this movie is the epitome of tremendously pathetic filmmaking if I've ever seen it. Tobe Hooper (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Eaten Alive, Poltergeist) should have certainty known better when he made this humiliatingly deplorable Sci-Fi Epic to end all others. Personally I've seen Mystery Science Theater 3000 movies that are leagues better than this film in character development, plausibility, musical accompaniment, direction, acting, and about anything thing else that really counts. Gosh, Manos the Hands of Fate was a more entertaining than this disgusting blemish of a film. With a substantial production budget, direction by Tobe Hooper, special effects by genre legend John Dykstra (Star Wars), and the screenplay written by the Sci-Fi legend Dan O'Bannon (Alien), you would at least pray they could have concocted something more substantial than a atrociously dreadful Space Vampire Disaster Epic that has great visual effects, sets in Pinewood Studios (where the Bond films were shot), and stars a stark naked space vampiress (for almost the entire film) played by Mathilda May. What's so troubling is this film blunders every conceivably enjoyable film element into a cataclysmic floundering that I will never ever forget no matter how much I may try. Though Lifeforce does have a fine DVD presentation, I wouldn't even bother dredging this stinkball from depths of quality purgatory unless you're in the mood for unbelievable torment brought to you in the comfort of your own home. Not even the Pope could pardon this debacle. P.S. This rates right up there with It's Pat
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