For those old enough to remember the beginnings of the DVD Boom (I’m capitalizing because, yes, it is an actual era in the history of film distribution), it’s safe to say that there was only one label to turn to for solid genre output: Anchor Bay. When they weren’t churning out their 9,000,000th release of an EVIL DEAD franchise entry, the Bay were putting out titles that made die hard horror fans salivate. Whether your tastes leaned toward Argento (their 3-Disc SUSPIRIA release is still busted out several times a year in my house), or you wanted to revisit some seriously schlocky VHS slasher with significantly better picture quality and no pesky “tracking” issues (how many times have they reissued that SILENT NIGHT, DEADLY NIGHT twofer pack?), Anchor Bay was your label of choice.
Sadly, as the years went on and the company grew (and was bought out by Starz Entertainment in 2006, renamed Starz Home Entertainment in 2007 and then subsequently reverted back to Anchor Bay in 2008), their interests and business model shifted toward acquiring and releasing new low-budget genre fare to theaters/DVD/VOD instead of generating catalog titles; a shame since they helped set the gold standard for home entertainment. A few other companies have matched or exceeded Anchor Bay in terms of quality cult, horror and exploitation fare (Bill Lustig’s Blue Underground label is my favorite of all time) but, to many, their name still represents a historical landmark in terms of niche market home entertainment.
These days, Shout! Factory (and their genre arm Scream Factory) have picked up right where Anchor Bay left off. For the last two years, the company has specialized in genre releases that put the old dogs to shame. “From the Factory Floor” will be a chronicling of the best of the best of these titles (which, believe you me, will be hard to distinguish at times), as both Shout! and Scream Factory continue to blow minds with such under-appreciated and, in some cases, flat out forgotten gems as HALLOWEEN III: SEASON OF THE WITCH and FUTUREWORLD. These are the movies that make serious genre fans like myself happy, and their 2013 lineup looks to be nothing less than amazing (ROLLING THUNDER! THE BURNING! LIFEFORCE!).
Film number eight in the series is Tobe Hooper’s gleefully eccentric space vampire film LIFEFORCE (1985)…
Before we go any further, a simple fact needs to be stated: Tobe Hooper is not a particularly good director. While the man is responsible for what is arguably the most important American horror film of all time in the TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE, the rest of his filmography is made up of, well, rather shitty movies. While I may enjoy such bugnuts B Pictures as EATEN ALIVE, THE FUNHOUSE and INVADERS FROM MARS, it’s hard for me to argue that they’re objectively “quality” films. They’re trash, but to misquote the great Pauline Kael, they’re “great trash”. LIFEFORCE, Hooper’s 1985 foray into cross pollinating the Hammer horror subgenre with a bit of ALIEN aping, gothic sci-fi, fits squarely into the category of “great trash”. A batshit tale of a naked, female space vampire (Mathilda May, whose bare breasts arguably awakened the sexual desires of an entire generation of mid ’80s nerd boys), LIFEFORCE is not only one of the great examples of a “VHS classic”, but also just how wild Cannon Films’ Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus let their creative talent run, provided they stayed within the limits of their meager budgets.
The opening moments of LIFEFORCE promise a Dan O’Bannon (ALIEN, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) penned space opera the likes of which we hadn’t yet seen. Adapting the novel Space Vampires by Colin Wilson (who would also help provide the story for TV’s MAX HEADROOM the same year), O’Bannon and co-writer Don Jakoby (who would go on to write the “awesome-in-a-TOTALLY-different-way” DEATH WISH III and Van Damme’s DOUBLE TEAM with Dennis Rodman) are working in what feels like “pulp overdrive”, as the Churchill, a US and British manned shuttle, hurtles toward Haley’s Comet. In the tail of the comet, they find a derelict alien craft containing both the fossilized, suspended corpses of what appear to be massive bats, along with crystal coffins that encase a beautiful, naked woman (May) and two male humanoid compatriots. The astronauts (led by Carlsen, a sinewy, Midwestern accented Steve Railsback) take the three seemingly human lifeforms back to the Churchill, but when a fire breaks out and kills the entire crew, a salvage team haul the humanoids to Earth in hopes of studying them. These space set scenes are stunningly colorful, as well as being strangely sexual, as the troupe of explorers travel down the organic, vaginal entrance to the ship until they reach what looks to be a massive chamber of crystal eggs. Hooper is very much lulling his audience into the same psycho-sexual trance the astronauts feel when they first lay eyes on the nude, buxom, sleeping beauty.
Unfortunately, the psychedelic interstellar imagery ends in about fifteen minutes, and we’re suddenly in a very drab, sterile London scientific research lab, where we meet our 1985 Alan Quartermass, Colin Cain (Peter Firth), who has been called in to investigate after our naked space vampires suddenly spring to life and start sucking the “lifeforce” from the nearby guards, thus reducing them to emaciated zombies who crumble into piles of ash. Cain doesn’t buy the “spiritual” theories Dr. Hans Fallada (Franck Finlay, feeling pulled straight out of a Stuart Gordon movie) is laying down, until the Churchill’s escape pod is discovered with a bearded, dazed Carlsen locked inside. And once Carlsen starts spilling about how Sleeping Beauty began draining his crew-mates of their souls, Cain realizes that it’s a race against time before the three humanoids suck all of London dry in an attempt to destroy the planet.
All of this is just as nutso on the screen as it is on the page, as not only is May naked during this entire romp (causing many a foppish British man to adjust their collar), but the aforementioned “spirit sucking” is portrayed via explosions of ’80s laser beams, smoke and strobe lights. May’s walking metaphor for sexually transmitted diseases (this, again, is the ’80s after all) also has the ability to body hop, jumping into the skin of not only a hitchhiking red head (the equally gorgeous Nancy Paul), but Captain Picard himself, Patrick Stewart (lending the movie its strangest, possibly homophobic, moment as May’s vampiress tries to subconsciously lure Railsbeck and Stewart into kissing). The inclusion of multiple vamps also points to the obvious Hammer influence on the picture, as both May and Paul are dead ringers for the buxom beauties the famed horror studio used to place front and center. They’re the BRIDES OF DRACULA FROM OUTER SPACE, entrancing every man they meet until they become a victim to their cruel master plan.
Because this is a Cannon Picture, there’s an air of low budget charm that pervades nearly every frame, from the animatronic undead to the rubbery, vampiric monstrosities at the end. The psychedelic opening and apocalyptic finale (in which almost all of downtown London are reduced to mindless zombies due to their souls having been sucked out) are really where the seams of the film’s meager budget show, but it all adds to the unique, sleazy allure Golan & Globus’ films owned. And Hooper attacks the material with aplomb, not quite achieving the greatness of THE QUARTERMASS EXPERIMENT or its subsequent sequels, but instead creating his own VHS rack pop art version. Much like his other post TCM output, the entire affair feels slightly tongue-in-cheek and fun, though not quite as over-the-top as something like THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE 2. So instead of debating just how much of POLTERGEIST the weirdo workman director is actually responsible for, do yourself a favor and visit (or re-visit, depending on how big of a genre fan you are) what may be one of the most idiosyncratic movies to come out of the ’80s horror boom.
Special Features: Scream Factory have yet again outdone themselves, as you’re going to need to set aside a few nights to get through this newly minted Special Edition. In addition to the dual commentaries (one by Hooper and another by FX maestro Nick Maley) and the usual Red Shirt Media produced featurettes (that include brand new retrospective interviews with Hooper, Mathilda May and Steve Railsback), there’s a 20+ minute “vintage featurette” originally created for the 1985 release (I’m guessing to be included on VHS tapes), and two radically different trailers and a TV spot. All in all, it would take you roughly seven hours to go through the disc in its entirety, and that’s not counting the fact that there are two different cuts of the film included.
To tell the truth, I actually prefer the 101 minute “theatrical cut” that was released in US theaters (where it swiftly tanked during the summer of ’85) to the fifteen minute longer UK version that is championed by Hooper. While I’m all for the artist’s “original vision”, the extra minutes really are just extended bits of exposition that, while helpful in explaining the general nutiness happening on screen, slow the movie to a creaking halt. It’s damn near a perfect lesson in how a movie can be “fifteen minutes too long”, and proof that a director is not always right.