1985's Lifeforce is So Much More than Just the Sexy Naked Lady Vampire from Space Movie (But It's That Too!)
Welcome, friends, to the latest entry in Control Nathan Rabin 4.0. It’s the career and site-sustaining column that gives YOU, the kindly, Christ-like, unbelievably sexy Nathan Rabin’s Happy Place patron, an opportunity to choose a movie that I must watch, and then write about, in exchange for a one-time, one hundred dollar pledge to the site’s Patreon account. The price goes down to seventy-five dollars for all subsequent choices.
The entertaining hagiography Jodorowsky’s Dune ends with shots from science fiction movies of the 1970s, 80s and 1990s that owe an unmistakable debt to the ideas and imagery of Jodorowsky’s ill-fated adaptation of Dune, perhaps the most influential film never made.
They range from the classiest and most highbrow fare to unabashed pulp like Masters of the Universe and Flash Gordon. I don’t remember whether or not Tobe Hooper’s infamous 1985 science fiction flop Lifeforce is referenced at the end of Jodorowsky’s Dune alongside classics like Star Wars, Blade Runner and Alien but it should be.
Lifeforce comes about its connection to Jodorowsky’s Dune honestly in that it was co-written by Dan O’Bannon, who Jodorowsky hand-picked as one of the “Spiritual Warriors” blessed to help him realize his dream of making the ultimate science fiction spectacle after being impressed by work O’Bannon did on John Carpenter’s 1974 debut film Dark Star.
Lifeforce carries more than a little of Jodorowsky’s Dune in its DNA. It is a science fiction film of ideas as well as an impossibly lurid spectacle. I was mesmerized by the overwhelming immensity of Hooper’s vision. I gave myself over to the film’s beguiling strangeness. I don’t just like Lifeforce, I love it.
It is, however, difficult to convince a skeptical world that a film is gorgeous and original and genuinely good when the world knows it almost exclusively as the Sexy Naked Vampire from Space Movie.
The maniacs at Cannon gave Hooper a twenty-five million dollar budget to make a movie that seemingly had no chance whatsoever of making a profit. He made the most of the film’s exorbitant budget to make what he conceived of as the world’s biggest, most expensive Hammer film.
Texas Chainsaw Massacre director Tobe Hooper may be a Texan through and through, producers/legendary schlockmeisters Menahem Golan and Yolam Globus were Israelis and star Steve Railsback may also have been born in Texas but Lifeforce is unmistakably a British film.
Lifeforce is based on a rather slim novel titled Space Vampires by British novelist Colin Wilson. The book was inspired by the work of H.P. Lovecraft and his Cthulhu mythology. Wilson was not happy with what Hooper did to Space Vampires but it nevertheless shares a lot of themes with the novel that inspired it.
As in Lovecraft’s work Lifeforce is about a vast and all-consuming evil almost beyond our comprehension as mere mortals. It’s about a race of space vampires who seemingly pre-date humanity, who inhabited our world before us and consequently inspired folklore and mythology involving otherworldly blood-suckers.
But before things get gruesome we begin on a note of Kubrickian precision in a sequence that takes place aboard the space shuttle Churchill. The crew encounters a mysterious one hundred and fifty mile ship inside Halley’s Comet.
Like much of the film, the vampire ship is a masterpiece of production design, a sleek, eerie monster that seems at once otherworldly and almost alive. It’s black and gleaming and filled with giant, dried-out bat creatures, and a trio of humanoid figure being perfectly preserved in in the cryogenic chambers.
It’s worth noting that Lifeforce only seems interested in the sexy naked vampire lady played by Mathilda May in a performance that can only be described as unforgettable, bewitching and extremely naked.
May is so, so, so naked in Lifeforce. She’s the whole reason people think of Lifeforce as a cheesy flop about a sexy naked space vampire from outer space rather than a visually sumptuous exploration of Lovecraftian obsessions.
May is very good at being naked. It’s a talent that she undeniably possesses. In the history of film, few actresses have been as extravagantly, excessively or transcendently naked as May is here.
May’s sexy naked space vampire is so unbelievably gorgeous that you can see how someone might be willing to betray all of humanity and risk armageddon just to have a shot with her.
In an economical bit of storytelling we skip from Churchill discovering the bodies to the aftermath of the confrontation. With the exception of Steve Railsback’s Col. Tom Carlsen everyone onboard has died an agonizing death in space.
The Colonel alone manages to flee via an escape pod and make it back home. Railsback is famous for playing Charles Manson in the Heater Skelter and the title role in The Stunt Man. The role of Col. Tom Carlsen fits snugly into Railsback’s sweet spot of crazy-eyed maniacs who lost the plot somewhere along the way.
That certainly describes his character here. He may have survived the massacre onboard the Churchill but it changed him irrevocably and not for the better. He now has a psychic link to a space vampire that, honestly, he seems to have a huge crush on despite her being the unholy embodiment of pure evil.
Back on Earth the sexy naked space vampire, credited only as “Space Girl” quickly escapes confinement and begins draining the life force out of humans and jumping from body to body like the villain in The Hidden.
Space Girl and her two compatriots are space vampires but they do not need to drink the blood of their victims to transform them into inhuman ghouls, strange, unfortunate creatures that combine the worst of vampires with everything that’s dreadful about zombies.
Instead they suck the energy and life-force out of their victims, leaving them desiccated corpses. The visual effects in Lifeforce are handled by special effects legend John Dykstra, who has two Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects, one for Star Wars and the other for Spider-Man 2 and a third Oscar for technical achievement.
Dykstra does a stunning job here. Lifeforce is a feast for the eyes and for the senses, a deliberately overwhelming and disorienting head trip that maintains an element of utter and complete hysteria even in its quietest moments.
Hooper would never make a movie as big or ambitious as this ever again. It was his shot at the big time and he made the most of it even as the film was destined to be maligned and misunderstood, mostly because of the whole sexy naked lady vampire from space thing.
I’m not sure why it’s taken me this long to finally write up the sexy naked vampire lady from space movie for My World of Flops but I’m glad a reader forced me to see this wonderful film.
I can now add Lifeforce to the long and ever growing list of notorious flops that are widely reviled that I love non-ironically.
So give this a shot if you’re curious. It has a whole lot more to offer than just a sexy naked vampire from space but it has that as well, if you’re into that kind of thing, which I most assuredly am.
Failure, Fiasco or Secret Success: Secret Success
Help choose the movies I write about here by becoming a paid subscriber at https://nathanrabin.substack.com or by pledging the site’s Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/nathanrabinshappyplace
Pre-order The Fractured Mirror, my next book, a massive, 650 page exploration of the long and distinguished history of American movies about the film industry at https://the-fractured-mirror.backerkit.com/hosted_preorders
Check out The Joy of Trash: Flaming Garbage Fire Extended Edition at https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop and get a free, signed "Weird Al” Yankovic-themed coloring book for free! Just 18.75, shipping and taxes included! Or, for just 25 dollars, you can get a hardcover “Joy of Positivity 3: Can’t Stop Won’t Stop” edition signed (by Felipe and myself) and numbered (to 50) copy with a hand-written recommendation from me within its pages. It’s truly a one-of-a-kind collectible!
I’ve also written multiple versions of my many books about “Weird Al” Yankovic that you can buy here: https://www.nathanrabin.com/shop
Or you can buy The Joy of Trash from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Trash-Nathan-Definitive-Everything/dp/B09NR9NTB4/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr= but why would you want to do that?