Saturday 15 October 2016

Speciesist 0

There's an MGM film which features an alien/human hybrid woman that wants to have sex with lots of men, who is chased by a small team of people. No, it's a movie that's ten years before that one, this is Lifeforce.

A space craft investigating Halley's Comet finds another ship in the comet's cone. Inside are dead large bats and three nude figures. Of course they free the figures, and the lead female wipes out the ship. The three figures end up on earth, and immediately the female overpowers any nearby males and escapes into London. The one surviving spaceman joins with a Colonel from the Special Air Service to slowly track her across the country, where those attacked come back to life and drain the life force from others. So, as one person points out, Vampires and Zombies! It's not so much that people win, more that they survive the encounter and see the vampires off.

This features Peter Firth, playing a character not a million miles away from the one he would play in Spooks. There is also basically a cameo from Patrick Stewart, who doesn't exactly get to show off his acting chops, more his ability to lie down. The lady is Mathilda May, and she is full frontal naked more often than not. The male lead is Steve Railsback, who... I don't remember ever seeing in anything else.

There are some great puppet effects here, which deserves to be seen. Aside from that, we aren't talking about a great entry into cinema history here, but one that definitely precursors the series I've been talking about.

[END]

1 comment:

Jet Simian said...

Good call on the Species link - I never thought of that!

I, um... apeciate Lifeforce on a few levels (quiet back there). It has great wizened Eighties zombies! It has a British space programme! It has a Henry Mancini score! It's a Tbe Hooper joint! It's written by Colin Wilson! It has blue lightning! It has Frank 'The Witchsmeller Pursuivant' Finlay in if-wet Christopher Lee mode!

Yes, the story's a bit bobbins (it's also quite D. Who, aside from the nuddittery), but it's very raely boring, histrionic in places, and yes, it's bobbins.