Critic Rating
(read reviews)User Rating
Director
Tobe Hooper
Cast
Steve Railsback,
Peter Firth,
Frank Finlay,
Mathilda May,
Patrick Stewart,
Michael Gothard
Genre
Horror,
Science Fiction,
Thriller
A space shuttle mission investigating Halley's Comet brings back a malevolent race of space vampires who transform most of London's population into zombies. The only survivor of the expedition works with the British authorities in an attempt to capture the mysterious alien woman who seems to be responsible for the chaos.
IndieWire
It has everything a growing horror freak needs: extreme violence, tons of nudity, vampires, mummies, and apocalyptic bedlam. The movie is slyer and smarter than people give it credit for, and absolutely gorgeous-looking.
Chicago Tribune by Gene Siskel
In film circles there's a name for pictures like Lifeforce. Film Comment magazine has dubbed them guilty pleasures, movies you're embarrassed to admit you like. Maybe somebody spiked my popcorn, but I can't deny that I liked Lifeforce.
Slant Magazine by Chuck Bowen
Watching Lifeforce now is to be reminded that even big-budget films were once allowed to be adventurous and idiosyncratic, even in the 1980s, and that American horror movies were once capable of being fun, sexy, and subversively empathetic.
IndieWire by Drew Taylor
It has everything a growing horror freak needs: extreme violence, tons of nudity, vampires, mummies, and apocalyptic bedlam. The movie is slyer and smarter than people give it credit for, and absolutely gorgeous-looking.
Time Out by Tom Huddleston
Lifeforce is a near-impossible film to review, at once indescribably awful and hugely, brilliantly entertaining.
Variety
Pic [from the novel The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson] descends into subpar Agatha Christie territory.
Chicago Reader by Dave Kehr
Director Tobe Hooper seriously overplays his hand, losing the shape of this 1985 film in a barrage of overblown special effects and screaming Dolby stereo.
Miami Herald by Bill Cosford
Although we see many strange things happen (and some of them are seen through wondrous-looking special effects), we never have a clue as to what's really going on, and why. [24 June 1985, p.B6]
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
Silly, moronically entertaining horror film. [25 June 1985]
Variety by Staff (Not Credited)
Pic [from the novel The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson] descends into subpar Agatha Christie territory.
CineVue
As a piece of extraterrestrial-tinged whimsy, Lifeforce occasionally shows weak signs of life, but in the end it falls well short of achieving classic status.
Washington Post by Paul Attanasio
The screenplay, by Dan O'Bannon and Don Jakoby, is just one long passage of exposition: someone blows up or dries up or whatever, you wonder why that's happening, and then someone explains it. This they call suspense. [25 June 1985, p.C8]
The New York Times by Janet Maslin
Lifeforce shows off Mr. Hooper's way with a whirling mass of protoplasm, just as Poltergeist did. But its style is shrill and fragmented enough to turn Lifeforce into hysterical vampire porn.
CineVue by Cleaver Patterson
As a piece of extraterrestrial-tinged whimsy, Lifeforce occasionally shows weak signs of life, but in the end it falls well short of achieving classic status.
TV Guide Magazine
The film is a mess from start to finish with several main characters who appear and disappear throughout. No character development, no thematic development, no narrative development. No life. No force. No dice.
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