Review of Lifeforce (1985) by Doctor P — 04 Sep 2008

Texas Chainsaw Massacre messiah Tobe Hooper shows us his big invasion/human plague movie using extraterrestrial psychic vampires smuggled to Earth via Halley's Comet and then a crew aboard the space station Churchill, monitoring it.

Once the plague hits Earth, the male protagonist is already set on a quest for the female antagonist. Nice modern adaptation of the Dracula themes, especially in terms of life and sexuality, this movie seeks, like the original tale, to affirm binaries by insistence that there is genuine evil.

I'm in type most of what I'm thinking mode today. And the main thing I thought through this was - okay, but move it along. For what it is - an 80s movie about the end of the world via alien psychic vampires - it is decent, but it adds no satirical punch or genuine take home messages.

It's just lukewarm and can't stir a viewer either way. Another movie (in the grand majority) that can't connect the gap between fantastical story elements and relatable central themes/emotions.