This film has a very special place in my heart. To sit back and read all the reviews from people who really love it is heart warming. To read the ones that rip it to shreds, I like them too. I just love the heated debate this film inspires even to this day. I must admit I would like to remake this story but more to the original Colin Wilson novel.To watch the film and remember the awesome time I had working at Elstree Studios with people people who had worked on the original 'Star Wars' trilogy makes me realise how lucky I was to spend several months on this playing a Walking Shrival. My first acting job. A dream come true playing in a twenty five million dollar playground.https://www.facebook.com/lifeforcewalkingshrival/

The blu-ray of Lifeforce wasn't some great revelation of a lost artifact from the 80's that should be held up high as any 'great art'. Hell, the studio it's from - Cannon films, that good old purveyor of quality like Superman 4 - gives an indication that it'll be a cheesy, no-frills sci-fi. But the film has (surprisingly) some classy sci-fi direction via Tobe Hooper, for titillation (and just weirdness at times, the two mix together) Mathilda May's constant nudity, a thrilling and dark Henry Mancini score, and some bizarre and fun writing from Dan OBannon (and some boring exposition from the other writer).Really, if only the acting, aside from Patrick Stewart, wasn't so bad, and it really is sometimes hard to take - who is this lead actor guy, why hadn't I seen him aside from this, oh, right, he sucks - then it could be possibly wonderful instead of simply a curious cult object. I may have neglected to mention the story, here it is: hot alien lady comes to Earth, stirs s*** up. There.But it was better than I expected, and to the filmmaker's credit and to the intentions of one of the writers I'd suspect, it's a B movie in the proudest sense of the word.

Three vampiric aliens found in Halley's Comet are brought back to Earth, where they wreak havoc all over London. Now a team of British scientists and an American astronaut (Steve Railsback) must try to stop them, even though one (Mathilda May) is a total babe that is allergic to clothing.The special effects and sets are very good. The script is smart and the direction solid. The cast is fine, although Steve Railsback is a little wooden. Obviously the movie is most famous for Mathilda May walking around nude for almost the entire film. Which is a shame, as it's a quality sci-fi film. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't averting my eyes whenever Miss May was on screen anymore than the next guy. She's certainly gorgeous. But it's caused this movie's reputation to suffer and now it's mostly known as "that sci-fi movie where the chick walks around naked the whole time."This was the first of three films that Tobe Hooper did for Cannon. He was a big "get" for them at the time and they gave him a huge budget for this film. Unfortunately all three of Hooper's Cannon films flopped at the box office and played a part in Cannon falling apart in the late '80s. It also meant the end of Hooper's career as an A-list director. He would never make anything great or even very good again.

Such a wonderful film, every time you think you've got the handle on it they throw in something new that totally takes you by surprise. I can see why it wasn't a success (partly I think because of the useless eye-over-Earth poster, you have a film with the gorgeous naked Mathilda May, apocalyptic London and huge spaceships and you don't put them on the poster? Indeed most of the advertising art for Lifeforce seems to be for a different film altogether and never appears on screen) but surely it deserved to be?What's great about it? EVERYTHING! Mathilda May is just the most beautiful woman ever, she's sexier than Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman and Eliza Dushku as the dominatrix and that's really saying something. On the whole the perversion in this mainstream film really has to be seen to be believed, Aubrey Morris as the Home Secretary seems to be constantly salivating over it all like the customer at a porno show and you feel that many in the audience will be feeling the same way. Amidst exploding zombie corpses and naked spacegirls constructed from her victim's blood the scene that really stands out to you is the heroes slapping the beautiful red-headed nurse around for information but saying that's OK because she's 'an extreme masochist' and is loving every second of it. Even in today's world of extreme gorno I don't think you'd get away with that any more in a mainstream film (interesting rewatching that scene and looking at the posters on the wall behind her, her as a little girl being hugged by her father and a sticker saying 'Head over heels in love'?). Some great performances from Peter Firth (Colonel Caine, SAS)and Frank Finlay (obstensibly a bio-chemist but his real interest is death), watching these characters dealing best they can with a situation totally beyond their control. A few great lines of dialogue and some wonderful set-pieces, absolutely love Caine heroically fighting his way through zombie infested London to Henry Mancini's amazing orchestral score to save the day and Carlsen's valiant act of self-sacrifice (again, the last thing you're expecting, you think he'll stab her but it's a shock when he impales himself too).Many questions that are never really answered. Are Carlsen and the spacegirl dead or are they preserved in the spaceship crystal coffins as before? What happened to all the human souls, did they go free, are they trapped on the ship or have they been used to revive the vampire race? Was Fallada genuinely trying to help Caine stop the vamps or was he leading him astray knowing that he was going to try to drain him? Where did he get the sword and how did he know how to use it? All told it will never win any Oscars but it is truly fantastic in every sense of the word.