Mathilda May as the erotic essence vampire of Tobe Hooper’s LIFEFORCE.


Earth, but a fire breaks out dur- ing the flight home and the ship is later found floating in space with Carlsen missing and the re- maining crew members reduced to charred husks. The aliens’ en- closures survived the conflagra- tion, however, and are brought back to Earth, where the physi- cally perfect beings revive to drain the life essence of unsuspecting humans. Their shriveled, zombie- like victims are left with a vora- cious need to feed and a plague of homicide soon begins to spread across the British coun- tryside. While these events un- fold, Carlsen is discovered to be alive and possessing a strange mental link to the female alien (Mathilda May). Aided by S.A.S. officer Caine (Peter Firth), Carlsen uses this unwanted bond to track the girl’s movements in the hopes of destroying her and ending the carnage before the military resorts to a thermo- nuclear cleansing of London. Directed by Tobe Hooper during his Cannon Films run, and adapted from Colin Wilson’s 1976 novel THE SPACE VAMPIRES, LIFEFORCE’s uneasy incorpora- tion of contemporary gore and eroticism (May spends the major- ity of her screentime unclothed)


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into a grand scale equivalent of Hammer’s Quatermass films left many viewers and critics bewil- dered when the film was first re- leased, but video and cable exposure gave rise to a slow-cook cult following. Looking at the pic- ture almost three decades later, when the quotient of violence and gore routinely displayed in R- rated features has risen dramati- cally, these shifts in tone are no longer as jarring as they once were, and the fine supporting cast of British thespians (including Frank Finlay, Patrick Stewart, Michael Gothard, and Aubrey Morris) do well by the material, even at its most outlandish. One is also appreciative of just how impressive the movie remains on a technical level, thanks to first class John Dykstra effects work during the space sequences and some excellent animatronics uti- lized to depict the reanimated, shriveled corpses. LIFEFORCE was a joint ven- ture between Cannon and TriStar Pictures, with the latter company handling the movie theatrically and on television in the US and Canada. TriStar’s in- volvement led to the jettisoning of the “Space Vampires” title and the trimming of 15m from


their version, an editorial over- haul performed with Hooper’s participation. That domestic edi- tion drops the opening credits and Henry Mancini’s main title theme in favor of new music by Michael Kamen that melds well enough. The credits (blood red in this version) instead unfold over the opening sequence of the Churchill crew approaching and then exploring the alien vessel. Virtually all the events in the opening reel have been signifi- cantly condensed, leaving the first half feeling rushed and choppy at times. Later scenes tend to be abbreviated in ways that are generally not damaging to the storyline, but there are deletions of moments that appar- ently elicited unintended laugh- ter from preview audiences or made TriStar uneasy. A prime example is the removal of the line identifying a supporting charac- ter as an “extreme masochist” whom Carlsen decides must be beaten for information. The change renders Col. Caine’s re- tort that he fine with this, as he is “a natural voyeur”—rather non- sensical. Also notable in its ab- sence is the sequence where Railsback and co-star Patrick Stewart (as an asylum director


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