Greatest Movie of All Time of the Week: Lifeforce!

If random stills from your movie don't look like Frazetta paintings, you are doing it wrong.

As we've discussed previously, vampires have been played out for a long time. Lifeforce (1985), directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), however, neatly sidestepped the clichés and pitfalls by reframing the vampire as an extraterrestrial shapeshifter which hacks the Jungian depths of human psychology by posing as a naked hottie to extract the precious Lifeforce (1985) from unwary man.

Me when a random 7 smiles at me bc she thinks I'm learning disabled.

Steve Railsback (not a porn name) plays the hapless astronaut who alone survives the wreck of the spaceship Churchill (for this movie is set in Bri'ain) to find himself forever bonded to the vampiress (Mathilda May) who stalks the streets of Merrie Englande in the buff. Though the bravura opening sequence is set in spehss, to anyone unfamiliar with Bri'ish TVkino Yes, Minister (and it's diminishing-returns sequel Yes, Prime Minister), it's 1980s Bri'ain that makes for the more offputtingly alien setting. Fortunately our un-dead Stacy makes short work of most of that unfortunate country.

Neat detail: Thotsferatu has cool spiral eyes.

SAS Colonel Colin Caine (Peter Firth) enlists Railsback to track down the spehss vampiress in much the same way half-bitten Mina helps track down Dracula in Bram Stoker's novel, but in Lifeforce the vampires can body-hop like Jason in The Final Friday, so this section of the movie leads us on a merry dance around the soggy Bri'ish countryside and a sanitarium run by Patrick Stewart (Star Trek The Next Generation), who engages in Exorcistesque shenanigans as he channels the exhibitionistic vampire chick.

Young Patrick Stewart reacts to Old Patrick Stewart making Picard (Currentyear+whatever the fucc)

This chews up much of the second act before being handwaved away as mostly the distraction it is, before we plunge headfirst into the borderline non-sequitur that is the third act, in which London becomes overrun by zombies, causing explosions somehow.

Mostly Peaceful Protest or football hooligans? Hugh D. Syde!

But, like all trve kvlt KNHOs, we're not here for a coherent plot, but for the experience. The best way to describe Lifeforce is like if 2001-era Kubrick directed a Heavy Metal segment. The slick widescreen photography, random fish-eye lenses and frequent left-turns into bad-trip psychedelia make this easily the best 2001 pastiche since Star Trek The Motion Picture, while the visual effects by John Dykstra leave most of its contemporaries in the dust. Sadly audiences in 1985 overlooked this gem so now you have to watch Captain Thormerica and the Wasp 2: Multiverse of Gayness every year.

Nooo my worst fear: sex with a beautiful woman. I'm going insaaane nooo