Lifeforce

"Lifeforce" redirects here. For other concepts with that name, see Life force.

Lifeforce
Movie poster
Directed by	Tobe Hooper
Produced by	Yoram Globus Menahem Golan
Written by	Novel: Colin Wilson Screenplay: Dan O'Bannon Don Jakoby
Starring	Steve Railsback Mathilda May Peter Firth Frank Finlay Patrick Stewart
Music by	Henry Mancini
Distributed by	Tri-Star Pictures (U.S.); Cannon Film Distributors (non-U.S.)
Release date(s)	June 21, 1985 (U.S. release)
Running time	116 min. / USA:101 min. (edited version)
Language	English
Budget	$25,000,000 (estimated)

Lifeforce is a 1985 science fiction film directed by Tobe Hooper from a screenplay by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, from the novel The Space Vampires (published 1976) by Colin Wilson. The film performed badly on its original release.

Plot

While investigating Halley's Comet, the crew of the Anglo-American space shuttle Churchill finds a two-mile long spaceship hidden in the cone of the comet. Upon entering the alien spacecraft, the crew finds hundreds of dead and shrivelled bat-like creatures and three humanoid bodies, two male and one female in suspended animation within glass coffin-like containers. The crew recover the three aliens and begin the return trip to Earth.

During the return journey, Mission Control loses contact with the shuttle as it nears Earth and a rescue mission is sent to find out what happened on board. The rescuers find the Churchill completely gutted by fire, except for the three suspended animation cases bearing the aliens. All three are taken to European Space Research Center in London where they are watched over by Dr Leonard Bukovski (Michael Gothard) and Dr Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay). Prior to an autopsy taking place the female 'vampire' (Mathilda May) awakens and sucks the lifeforce out of a guard. She then escapes the research facility and begins sucking various humans of their life force and moving through various host bodies. It transpires the aliens are a race of space vampires that consume the life force from living beings that is subsequently uploaded to their ship.

Meanwhile, in Texas, an escape pod from the shuttle Churchill is found with Col. Tom Carlson (Steve Railsback) still alive. He is flown to London and tells how the crew were drained of their life force. To save Earth from this fate Carlson set fire to the shuttle and escaped in the pod. During hypnosis it is clear Carlson has a psychic link to the female alien. Carlson and Col. Colin Caine (Peter Firth), a member of the SAS, trace the alien to the body of a nurse at a hospital for the mentally disturbed in Yorkshire. They believe they have managed to trap the alien girl within the heavily sedated body of the hospital's manager, Dr Armstrong (Patrick Stewart). However, the entire episode was a trick to take them away from London.

As Carlson and Cane are transporting Dr Armstrong in a helicopter heading for London, the alien girl breaks free from Dr Armstrong and disappears. When they arrive back in London it is clear that a plague has taken full control - even the prime minister has been infected and martial law has been enacted to prevent the spread of the plague out of London. The two male vampires have also escaped from confinement and begun to transform most of London's population into zombies. Once transformed, the victims cycle into living-dead every two hours and seek out the living, absorbing the life force from their victims. These people themselves become vampires and the transformation process repeats. This energy is then collected by the male vampires who direct it to the female vampire who transfers it to the waiting spaceship in Earth's orbit.

Fallada manages to impale one of the male vampires with a sword made of lead. He surmises that the legends of vampires may well be drawn from a previous visit by this space vampire race. Carlson then admits to Kane that whilst on the shuttle he felt compelled to open the female vampire's container and to have shared his life force with hers. Carlson realises his psychic connection is being used lure him back to the alien so she can regain the life force she shared with him. She is located lying upon a church's altar transferring the energy to her spaceship.

Cane follows Carlson and dispatches the second male vampire (with the lead sword) before locating Carlson who sacrifices himself by impaling himself and the female alien in the process. The church explodes, propelling them both up to their spaceship, where it departs from Earth orbit.

Box office

Lifeforce was released on June 21, 1985 to disappointing box office returns. The film opened in fourth place, losing the head-to-head release battle against the Ron Howard sci-fi film, Cocoon. In total, Lifeforce earned $11,603,545^[1] at the US box office, a poor return on its estimated $25 million dollar budget.

Production notes

• The first film of Tobe Hooper's three-picture deal with Cannon. The other two films are the remake of Invaders from Mars and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.

• The film was edited for U.S. release by Tri-Star Pictures to a 101-minute version that was partially re-scored by Michael Kamen (a majority of Henry Mancini's original music did remain). The original 116-minute international version (with all the footage and the entirety of Mancini's music) is available on DVD.

• The film features special effects by Academy Award winner John Dykstra.

External links

• Lifeforce at the Internet Movie Database
• Lifeforce at Allmovie

References