Guilty Pleasure #88: Lifeforce (dir. by Tobe Hooper)

Posted on October 29, 2025 by Leonard Wilson

Hey, hey, wait just one second. Lifeforce is a movie everyone treasures. Here’s Arleigh’s take on the film. Check that out first and then double back here if you like.

Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce is one of those films that had a lot of play in my Grandmother’s house, primarily because of my younger Aunt, Puddin. Puddin was the other movie lover on my Dad’s side of the family, the youngest of his generation. While she couldn’t fully make the connections between actors or directors the way my father could, she loved films all the same. With films like Marnie, West Side Story, Conan the Barbarbian, she spent most of her free time immersed in movies. If you wanted to see her swoon, mention Sean Connery, Tyrone Power or Arnold Schwarzenegger in her presence. She had a habit of using movies she watched often as white noise when cleaning around the house. As a result, we saw Lifeforce a lot growing up. She adored the film mainly because the two heroes in it barely made any mistakes, but most importantly for Henry Mancini’s score. Besides, It’s a Cannon film. You know it’s good.

Lifeforce is the story of one of the greatest buddy pairings in of the 1980s. Yeah, Beck and Gallagher did awesome stuff in The Hidden. Riggs and Murtaugh solved the cases no matter how thin the leads were, and even with all his technology, Alex Murphy still needed Lewis for backup. These all pale in comparison to Lifeforce‘s Colonel Carlsen (Steve Railsback, Helter Skelter) and Colonel Caine (Peter Firth, The Hunt for Red October). The two characters’ laser focus and quick thinking help to keep the film moving, despite how crazy things can and do get. They also manage to have each other’s back in nearly every situation. They aren’t without troubles, however. Poor Carlsen is plagued with nightmares of making out with naked space vampires.

Halley’s Comet returns close to Earth. With it comes an incredibly large umbrella shaped ship that is discovered by the crew of the Churchill. Col. Carlsen, along with the other astronauts, find a series of sleeping humanoid bodies inside and bring 3 (two males and one female) on board. When the Churchill’s signal is lost, the Columbia is sent out to retrieve them. The crew is lost, Carlsen is missing, but the 3 alien bodies are brought back home to Earth for study. This goes about as well as one would hope, with the Space Girl (Mathilda May, Becoming Collette) waking up and causing havoc throughout the local Space Institute before walking away naked, into the night. Anyone she comes into contact with and kisses becomes an energy vampire, requiring a transfusion, else they shrivel and turn into dust.

Since we’re dealing with space vampires, I should inform you now that there’s quite a bit of nudity and maybe just a wee bit of sexual tension in Lifeforce. The lines between Rabid and Showgirls comes kind of close in all this. When Carlsen forces a possible suspect to divulge the location of the Space Girl, slapping her up a bit, he tells Caine he should leave. Caine’s response is that he’s “a natural voyeur”. Does much of it make sense? No. Was it entertaining? Sure. The third act of Lifeforce is the best part, with all of London just a mess. Despite all this, Carlsen & Caine split up to save the day.

The cast for the film is nice. In addition to Railsback and Firth, we’ve got a Dune crossover with both Freddie Jones and Patrick Stewart on hand. We also have a small cameo with Dragonslayer’s John Hallam as a nurse. The best role other than the leads go to Frank Finlay and to Mathilda May. Finley’s Doctor Fallada is kind of a Van Helsing like character, piecing together all of the clues so our heroes can take the proper action. May, though she’s not given a lot to say (or to wear, for that matter) makes for an impressive villain that talks with her eyes.

The effects for Lifeforce came by way of John Dykstra, who worked on Firefox and The Empire Strikes Back. He’d later go on to work on Invaders From Mars for Hooper. Musically, Henry Mancini’s score helps to carry the film along. Honestly, I’ve only ever known him from the Pink Panther scores, so I quite enjoyed it. I always let the end credits play through for the music. Overall, Lifeforce is a great watch if vampires are your thing and nudity isn’t too much of a problem. In my mind, The Adventures of Carlsen & Caine would rival some of the best supernatural tales.

In examining this, I also found that there are some connections between this and Hammer Films’ Five Million Years to Earth (a.k.a. Quatermass and the Pit). I’m still on the look out for that one.

In Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce, Col. Carlsen & Col. Caine aren’t playing around.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

The Three Musketeers (1973, directed by Richard Lester) and The Four Musketeers (1974, directed by Richard Lester)

Posted on September 8, 2025 by Jedadiah Leland

In 1973, director Richard Lester and producer Ilya Salkind decided to try to get two for the price of one.

Working with a script written by novelist George McDonald Fraser, Lester and Salkind had assembled a once-in-a-lifetime cast to star in an epic film adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’s The Three Musketeers. Michael York was cast as d’Artagnan, the youthful swordman who goes from being a country bumpkin to becoming a King’s Musketeer. His fellow musketeers were played by Oliver Reed, Richard Chamberlain, and Frank Finlay. Faye Dunaway and Christopher Lee were cast as the villains, Milady and Rochefort. Charlton Heston played the oily Cardinal Richelieu. Geraldine Chaplin played Queen Anne while Simon Ward played the Duke of Buckingham. Comedic relief was supplied by Roy Kinnear as d’Artagnan’s manservant and Raquel Welch as Constance, d’Artagnan’s klutzy love interest. The film was a expensive, lushly designed epic that mixed Lester’s love of physical comedy with the international intrigue and the adventure of Dumas’s source material.

The only problem is that the completed film was too long. At least, that’s what Salkind and Lester claimed when they announced that they would be splitting their epic into two films. The cast and the crew, who had only been paid for one film, were outraged and the subsequent lawsuits led to the SAG ruling that all future actors’ contracts would include what was known as the Salkind clause, which stipulates that a a single production cannot be split into two or more films without prior contractual agreement.

But what about the films themselves? Both The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers are currently available on Tubi. I watched them over the weekend and, of the many films that have been made out of Dumas’s Musketeer stories, Richard Lester’s films are the best. Lester captures the swashbuckling spirit of the books while also turning them into two films that are easily identifiable as Lester’s work. There’s a lot physical humor to be found in Lester’s adaptation, especially during the first installment. d’Artagnan runs through the streets of Paris, convinced that he has been insulted by the haughty Rochefort. d’Artagnan manages to get challenged to three separate duels, all to take place on the same day. After his first swordfight as a member of the Musketeers, d’Artagnan tries to tell the men that he wounded about an ointment that will help them with their pain. Raquel Welch also shows a genuine flair for comedy as Constance, which makes her fate in the second film all the more tragic.

For all the controversy that it caused, splitting the story into two films was actually the right decision. If The Three Musketeers is an enjoyable adventure film, The Four Musketeers is far more serious. In The Four Musketeers, Oliver Reed’s melancholic Athos steps into the spotlight and his story of his previous marriage to the villainous Milady casts his character in an entirely new light. In The Four Musketeers, the combat is much more brutal and the humor considerably darker. Likable characters die. The Musketeers themselves commit an act of extrajudicial brutality that, while true to Dumas’s novel, would probably be altered if the film were made today. From being a naive bumpkin in The Three Musketeers, The Four Musketeers finds d’Artgnan transformed into a battle weary soldier.

The cast is fabulous. This is a case of the all-star label living up to the hype. Oliver Reed, Frank Finlay, and Richard Chamberlain all seems as if they’ve been riding and fighting together for decades. Christopher Lee plays Rochefort as being an almost honorable villain while Faye Dunaway is a cunning and sexy Milady. What truly makes the film work, though, is the direction of Richard Lester. Lester stay true to the spirit of Dumas while also using the material to comment on the modern world, with the constant threat of war and civil uprising mirroring the era in which the films were made. Interestingly enough, Richard Lester first became interested in the material when Ilya Salkind reached out to the Beatles to try to convince them to play the Musketeers. While the Beatles were ultimately more interested in a never-produced adaptation of The Lord of the Rings, Richard Lester was happy to bring Dumas’s characters to life.

Both The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers are currently on Tubi, for anyone looking for a truly great adventure epic.

Film Review: The Shoes of The Fisherman (dir by Michael Anderson)

Posted on January 5, 2025 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 1968 film, The Shoes of The Fisherman, opens in a snowy Siberian labor camp. For the past twenty years, this camp has been the home of Kiril Pavlovich Lakota (Anthony Quinn), the Ukrainian archbishop of Liviv. Kiril is unexpectedly released by Russia’s new leader, Piotr Ilyich Kamenev (a very British Laurence Olivier). After explaining to Kiril that Russia and China are on the verge of nuclear war due to a famine that has been instigated by U.S. sanctions, Kamenev tells Kiril that he is being released on the condition that he tell no one about the conditions at the Russian labor camp. Kiril starts to protest just for Father Telemond (Oskar Werner), the Vatican’s representative, to say that the conditions have already been agreed to.

In Rome, Kiril meets the Pope (John Gielgud), who makes the humble Kiril a cardinal, over Kiril’s objections that he just a “simple man.” Later, when the aged Pope suddenly dies, Kiril is unexpectedly elected, as a compromise candidate, to succeed him. Still humble and considering himself to be a simple man with a simple mission, Kiril suddenly finds himself as one of the most revered and powerful men on the planet. With Father Telemond as his secretary, Kiril tries to make the Vatican responsive to the needs of the people and sets out to bring peace between the Russians and the Chinese. That turns out to be easier said than done, especially when Telemond himself is eventually accused of heresy for his progressive views.

(And yes, Telemond is a Jesuit….)

The Shoes of the Fisherman is a type of film that should be familiar to anyone who has any knowledge of the Hollywood studios in the 60s. It’s the type of big and self-serious film that was meant to tell audiences, “You won’t find anything this opulent and important on television!” The cast is designed to appeal to everyone. Anthony Quinn and Laurence Olivier are there for the older viewers (especially the older viewers who made up the majority of the Oscar voters in 1968) while, for the younger voters, there’s handsome Oskar Werner as a Jesuit who interpretation of the Gospels is so radical that even Pope Francis would probably tell him to step back a little. For the older, anti-communist viewers, there are scenes that portray the harsh conditions at a Siberian labor camp. The commies put Kiril in prison so he must be one of the good guys. And for the younger, more liberal viewers, there was the suggestion that the threat of World War III was largely due to the actions of the American government. And, just in case there was still anyone who thought that television was preferable to a prestige picture, TV star David Janssen shows up as a cynical reporter whose wife (played by Barbara Jefford) is a doctor who Kiril helps to get some medicine for one of her dying patients. Director Michael Anderson includes enough sudden zoom shots to let younger viewers know that he’s with them while still directing in a stately enough manner to appeal to the older viewers.

The end result is a film that is big and grand but also rather slow. The film gets bogged down in subplots that don’t really add much to the overall story. We spend way too much time with the reporter and his wife. Anthony Quinn does a good enough job as Kiril, giving a rather subdued performance by Quinn standards. (A scene where Kiril recites a Jewish prayer for a dying man is wonderfully acted by Quinn, who seems to truly be emotionally invested in the film’s message of togetherness.) Laurence Olivier is not at all convincing as a Russian but still, he has the stately bearing of a man used to being in power. Like many of the studio productions of the late 60s, The Shoes of The Fisherman tries a bit too hard to strike a balance between old school Hollywood and the counterculture and the film ultimately feels rather wishy-washy as a result. It’s a noble film with good intentions but it’s not particularly memorable.

Resist The Call: Cthulhu Mansion (1992, directed by Juan Piquer Simon)

Posted on October 4, 2018 by Jedadiah Leland

After murdering a drug dealer at an amusement park, Hawk (Brad Fisher) and his gang of teenage thugs take Chandu (Frank Finlay) and his daughter, Lisa (Marcia Layton), hostage. As Hawk and company set up shop in Chandu’s mansion, Chandu warns them that they should leave before the mansion destroys them. Chandu has been summoning the forces of darkness and now they’re living in his basement. They already killed Chandu’s wife and now, they’re prepared to kill Hawk and the gang.

Hawk doesn’t believe a word that Chandu has to say. Plus, Hawk’s younger brother has been shot in the leg so they have no choice but to spend at least one night in the mansion. That turns out to be a big mistake. Before the night ends, Hawk’s brother ends up possessed, a woman gets pulled into a refrigerator, Hawk’s second-in-command drowns in a shower full of blood, and the mansion’s just getting started!

A Spanish-American co-production, Cthulhu Mansion was directed by Juan Piquer Simon, who earned a cult following for directing movies like Pieces, Slugs, and the immortal Pod People. Cthulhu Mansion never comes close to being as good as any of those films. Legitimately great actor Frank Finlay hams it up as Chandu and gets to wear some headgear that makes him look like Carnac The Magnificent but everyone else in the movie is forgettable and, with the exception of the blood shower, none of the deaths show any of the creativity that Simon brought to Slugs. Worst of all, Cthulhu doesn’t even make a cameo appearance.

While some may be tempted to watch because of the film’s appropriation of the Cthulhu name, resist the call of Cthulhu Mansion. H.P. Lovecraft wouldn’t have even stepped foot inside this house.

Lisa Reviews An Oscar Nominee: The Longest Day (dir by Ken Annakin, Andrew Marton, Bernhard Wicki, Gerd Oswald, and Darryl F. Zanuck)

Posted on June 6, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

As my sister has already pointed out, today is the 73rd anniversary of D-Day. With that in mind, and as a part of my ongoing mission to see and review every single film ever nominated for best picture, I decided to watch the 1962 film, The Longest Day!

The Longest Day is a pain-staking and meticulous recreation of invasion of Normandy, much of it filmed on location. It was reportedly something of a dream project for the head of the 20th Century Fox, Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck set out to make both the ultimate tribute to the Allied forces and the greatest war movie ever. Based on a best seller, The Longest Day has five credited screenwriters and three credited directors. (Ken Annakin was credited with “British and French exteriors,” Andrew Marton did “American exteriors,” and the German scenes were credited to Bernhard Wicki. Oddly, Gerd Oswald was not credited for his work on the parachuting scenes, even though those were some of the strongest scenes in the film.) Even though he was not credited as either a screenwriter or a director, it is generally agreed that the film ultimately reflected the vision of Darryl F. Zanuck. Zanuck not only rewrote the script but he also directed a few scenes as well. The film had a budget of 7.75 million dollars, which was a huge amount in 1962. (Until Steven Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, The Longest Day was the most expensive black-and-white film ever made.) Not only did the film tell an epic story, but it also had an epic length. Clocking in at 3 hours, The Longest Day was also one of the longest movies to ever be nominated for best picture.

The Longest Day also had an epic cast. Zanuck assembled an all-star cast for his recreation of D-Day. If you’re like me and you love watching old movies on TCM, you’ll see a lot of familiar faces go rushing by during the course of The Longest Day. American generals were played by actors like Robert Mitchum, Robert Ryan, Henry Fonda, and John Wayne. Peter Lawford, then the brother-in-law of the President of the United States, had a memorable role as the Scottish Lord Lovat, who marched through D-Day to the sounds of bagpipes. When the Allied troops storm the beach, everyone from Roddy McDowall to Sal Mineo to Robert Wagner to singer Paul Anka can be seen dodging bullets. Sean Connery pops up, speaking in his Scottish accent and providing comic relief. When a group of paratroopers parachute into an occupied village, comedian Red Buttons ends up hanging from the steeple of a church. When Richard Beymer (who is currently playing Ben Horne on Twin Peaks) gets separated from his squad, he stumbles across Richard Burton. Among those representing the French are Arletty and Christian Marquand. (Ironically, after World War II, Arletty was convicted of collaborating with the Germans and spent 18 months under house arrest. Her crime was having a romantic relationship with a German soldier. It is said that, in response to the charges, Arletty said, “My heart is French but my ass is international.”) Meanwhile, among the Germans, one can find three future Bond villains: Gert Frobe, Curt Jurgens, and Walter Gotell.

It’s a big film and, to be honest, it’s too big. It’s hard to keep track of everyone and, even though the battle scenes are probably about an intense as one could get away with in 1962 (though it’s nowhere near as effective as the famous opening of Saving Private Ryan, I still felt bad when Jeffrey Hunter and Eddie Albert were gunned down), their effectiveness is compromised by the film’s all-star approach. Often times, the action threatens to come to a halt so that everyone can get their close-up. Unfortunately, most of those famous faces don’t really get much of a chance to make an impression. Even as the battle rages, you keep getting distracted by questions like, “Was that guy famous or was he just an extra?”

Among the big stars, most of them play to their personas. John Wayne, for instance, may have been cast as General Benjamin Vandervoort but there’s never any doubt that he’s playing John Wayne. When he tells his troops to “send them to Hell,” it’s not Vandervoort giving orders. It’s John Wayne representing America. Henry Fonda may be identified as being General Theodore Roosevelt II but, ultimately, you react to him because he’s Henry Fonda, a symbol of middle-American decency. Neither Wayne nor Fonda gives a bad performance but you never forget that you’re watching Fonda and Wayne.

Throughout this huge film, there are bits and pieces that work so well that you wish the film had just concentrated on them as opposed to trying to tell every single story that occurred during D-Day. I liked Robert Mitchum as a tough but caring general who, in the midst of battle, gives a speech that inspires his troops to keep fighting. The scenes of Peter Lawford marching with a bagpiper at his side were nicely surreal. Finally, there’s Richard Beymer, wandering around the French countryside and going through the entire day without firing his gun once. Beymer gets the best line of the film when he says, “I wonder if we won.” It’s such a modest line but it’s probably the most powerful line in the film. I wish The Longest Day had more scenes like that.

The Longest Day was nominated for best picture of 1962 but it lost to an even longer film, Lawrence of Arabia.

Review: Lifeforce (dir. by Tobe Hooper)

Posted on September 2, 2010 by Arleigh

“I mean, in a sense we’re all vampires. We drain energy from other life forms. The difference is one of degree. That girl was no girl. She’s totally alien to this planet and our life form… and totally dangerous.” — Dr. Hans Fallada

1985’s Lifeforce, directed by Tobe Hooper, was critically panned and barely registered at the box office. Yet in the decades since its release, something curious has happened: the film has gathered a loyal cult following among fans of science fiction and horror. Hooper’s film fuses so many genre conventions that it resists classification—too strange for pure sci-fi, too grandiose for standard horror. The result is a striking and eccentric reinvention of the vampire myth, a lavish but uncanny blockbuster that feels imported from an alternate cinematic timeline.

The film begins squarely in the realm of science fiction. Conceived during the public fascination with Halley’s Comet ahead of its 1986 return, Lifeforce rode the wave of comet-themed media flooding the decade. Most were cheap cash-ins. Hooper’s film stood out for its ambition and its visual scale.

Coming off Poltergeist, Hooper received an unusually large budget—a far cry from the lean, feral energy of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The story follows the crew of the shuttle Churchill as they discover a massive alien spacecraft hidden in the comet’s tail. Inside, frozen in suspended animation, are three humanoid figures. The ship’s dignified name feels ironic, even doomed; considering what’s to come, Demeter might have been more fitting. Like the sailors of Stoker’s novel, these astronauts inadvertently ferry an ancient predatory force home—yet this time, the threat arrives from the stars.

The horror unfolds once the crew retrieves its mysterious “specimens.” Members die in gruesome succession until only one survivor, Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), escapes in a pod back to Earth. Railsback’s performance is an intriguing mix of unhinged emotion and grim conviction. His intensity suits a film that constantly walks the line between pulp spectacle and cosmic tragedy.

When the story shifts to London, Lifeforce transforms into a supernatural thriller with procedural undertones. Peter Firth’s Colonel Colin Caine becomes the viewer’s compass: calm, authoritative, and determined to impose order on mounting chaos. As London succumbs to panic and outbreak, his steady professionalism anchors the outlandish events. His partnership with Railsback’s haunted, psychic Carlsen gives the middle act its volatile energy.

Among the supporting cast, Frank Finlay leaves one of the strongest impressions as Dr. Hans Fallada, a scientist fascinated by death and metaphysical energy. He serves as both philosopher and investigator, treating the vampiric invasion as a riddle of life itself. His restrained curiosity lends weight to scenes that might otherwise descend into absurdity. While the city collapses, Fallada studies the phenomenon with eerie calm, treating catastrophe as an experiment in cosmic entropy.

Patrick Stewart also makes a memorable, if brief, appearance as Dr. Armstrong, the head of a psychiatric hospital linked to the Space Girl’s psychic presence. His role builds to the film’s most grotesque and bizarre sequence: an exchange of minds, sudden possession, and an unnervingly intimate kiss with Railsback. The moment condenses everything Lifeforce represents—erotic, macabre, and unconcerned with boundaries. Stewart brings a gravitas that makes the absurd strangely compelling, a counterweight to Railsback’s volatility and Mathilda May’s silent allure.

May, as the unnamed Space Girl, says little but dominates the film through presence alone. She embodies an alien ideal of beauty and destruction, gliding through scenes with a composure that’s both sensual and predatory. Her nudity, much debated at the time, plays less as exploitation and more as elemental symbolism—the human body as an expression of both creation and death, desire and annihilation.

Supporting figures from the British military and government round out the ensemble, emphasizing the film’s descent into bureaucratic chaos. Michael Gothard’s Kane, a Ministry of Defence officer struggling to reconcile logic with the inexplicable, captures the helplessness of institutional order collapsing under cosmic threat. His pragmatic exchanges with Firth highlight competing instincts between reason and survival.

As the infection spreads, Lifeforce expands into a vision of urban apocalypse that fuses British science fiction and American spectacle. London becomes a nightmare tableau—crowds of shriveled corpses feed on energy while arcs of blue plasma swirl through the sky. The city’s fall evokes both George A. Romero’s zombie apocalypse and the metaphysical unease of Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass stories. Amid the insanity, Finlay and Firth remain the emotional touchstones, keeping the audience oriented as narrative logic begins to dissolve.

For all its ambition, however, Lifeforce suffers from erratic pacing and tonal whiplash. The first act unfolds with deliberate, moody wonder, then abruptly veers into frenzied exposition and psychic melodrama once the story reaches Earth. The balance between unsettling mystery and outright spectacle often collapses under its own weight. Scenes that should evoke cosmic terror sometimes tip into unintended camp, particularly in the dialogue-heavy middle stretch. Hooper’s direction, though visually imaginative, occasionally struggles to maintain coherence amid the script’s shifting identities—part creature feature, part disaster epic, part metaphysical drama. The editing, especially in the theatrical cut, undercuts tension with rushed transitions that leave emotional beats hanging. Railsback’s manic performance, while strangely compelling, can also verge on excess, blurring the line between conviction and chaos.

Tonally, the film wavers between awe and amusement. For some viewers, its earnest delivery will read as self-parody; for others, its collision of erotic horror and science fiction grandeur gives it a singular vitality. Lifeforce’s flaws are inseparable from its daring. It dares to fail boldly, and in that failure finds a kind of messy transcendence—larger than reason, too strange to fade.

In the end, Lifeforce lingers as one of the strangest hybrids of its era: part gothic fable, part erotic horror, part apocalyptic science fiction. It was too eccentric to find mainstream success, yet its sincerity and scope give it lasting resonance. The ensemble performances and tonal daring hold the film together, transforming potential chaos into something mythic—a story about possession, contagion, and humanity’s fatal pull toward the unknown.

Beneath its spectacle, the film engages in a deeper dialogue between gothic and cosmic horror traditions. Its characters represent a spectrum of responses to the incomprehensible: Fallada’s intellectual curiosity, Firth’s stoic resolve, Railsback’s frenzy, and May’s serene seduction. Together they form a portrait of human fragility in confrontation with the infinite. Where gothic horror finds fear in the collapse of reason, cosmic horror finds it in the vast indifference of the universe.

By fusing these lineages, Lifeforce becomes a mythic apocalypse that feels both intimate and vast—an encounter between flesh and void, terror and temptation. Its fusion of genres, ideas, and performances ensures its peculiar power endures, a reminder that some of the strangest failures of 1980s cinema are also its most visionary.