Poison Popcorn – Lifeforce

Lifeforce header image

If the thought of naked space vampires rampaging through London spawning zombies and body snatching at every turn doesn’t turn your nipples hard enough to chisel their way through a diamond bra then perhaps watching Patrick Stewart play a round of tonsil tennis with a burly astronaut will pique your b-movie boner in the flesh fest that is Lifeforce.

Genre: Sci-Fi/ Horror/ Thriller
Director: Tobe Hooper   
Rated: R
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Straight off the bat we know there’s going to be some seriously weird shit going on because the land of tea and crumpets is taking the lead in a manned space flight, but a handful of yanks have been thrown into the mix to keep things from going too crazy. Their mission is to slide on up to the passing Halley’s Comet, perform a bit of vague science in its general vicinity and head on back to Earth, but the crew of the Churchill scrap that plan in favour of boarding the 150 mile long spaceship they find hitched up to the comet’s tail.

Lifeforce vampire spaceship

Having lost all communication with mission control, Colonel Tom Carlsen, captain of the expedition, leads almost everyone aboard and in a move that would make the crew of the Prometheus look like paragons of basic common sense, ploughs on through the room full of the desiccated corpses of giant bats and hauls the three naked humanoids he finds encased in crystalline cases back to the ship without a second’s thought.

Lifeforce vampire bats
“Guys, I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about!”

A month later, with no word whatsoever from the crew, mission control spot the returning Churchill hurtling homeward and send a rescue team to rendezvous with the vessel to find out just what the heck is going on up there. They find the entirety of the ship gutted by fire but the nudie cargo is mysteriously intact. Without pausing to spend at least five minutes wondering about that, they somehow lug the humanoids back to the space centre located in the centre of London and begin investigating the sole female first, because really, who wants to mess about with some alien guy’s junk and have that flapping about in their face when there’s a nubile looking young woman to be examined.

"Of course I'm a doctor! Why else would I be in here..."
“Of course I’m a doctor! Why else would I be in here…”

The examination is postponed indefinitely when the subject decides she’s had enough of pretending to be unconscious and snogs her way out of the facility without bothering to pick up a change of clothes on the way. The only downside to being on the receiving end of her cunning escape plot is that her creepy frenching sucks out the life force of her victim turning them into mummy-like husks for a couple of hours before they reanimate and start sucking the life force from any hapless sod who happens to be in the area. And hey presto, we have ourselves some zombies!

Lifeforce zombie
POW! Right in the Kisser!

Meanwhile Colonel Carlsen is located in an escape pod in Texas and is flown to London immediately for questioning. He confesses to torching the Churchill and spins a yarn about the aliens casting a spell on the crew leaving him no choice but to burn everything and make a quick getaway. Further questioning under hypnosis reveals that Carlsen has a mental bond with the female space vampire who is now also psychic.

Psychic vampire bat sex attack!
Psychic vampire bat sex attack!

She plays a few mind games to get Carlsen and his sidekick out of London while she decimates the populous with the assistance of her muscle whose secondary function is to funnel the life force being collected by the zombies straight to her majesty who is channelling it to the vampire ship which is apparently installed with some form of space vampire GPS and is hovering above London harvesting the souls.

Lifeforce soul funnel

Carlsen finally realises he’s being played for a fool when the female vampire possesses an innocent manager of a psychiatric hospital and unable to resist her womanly charms even when they’re cloaked in the body of Patrick Stewart, succumbs to his urges and gives him a big ol’ smooch.

"Make it so...so sexy!"
“Make it so…so sexy!”

Will they get back to London in time to stop the vampires from turning everyone into zombie drones? Will Carlsen admit that the aura of Captain Picard was just as alluring, if not more so, than the psychic presence of a hot naked chick? Find out in Lifeforce.

Lifeforce space vampire


lifefore bluray

We dare you to buy Lifeforce on blu-ray!

Previously in Poison Popcorn: Prophecy. See previous Poison Popcorns right fucking here!




4 thoughts on “Poison Popcorn – Lifeforce

  1. A few months back I remember a pretty cool post of behind the scenes FX shots from this movie, on the Practical Effects group on Facebook. I think it was from the actual FX supervisor, he did some pretty hardcore creatures. There was some debate about the lady vampire’s hibernation chamber dummy being a little too ‘perky’. Usually people are molded while standing up, so I guess that would explain it. Or just chalk it up to zero gravity, yeah that’s it. 🙂

  2. this movie caught me by surprise. I was already becoming a Steve Railsback fan from having seen Escape 2000, and this sealed the deal. well this and X-Files.

    fantastic sci-fi schlock. a little too long, but a great time.

  3. This Sounds like a classic, havent seen it but it has everything a modern movie has. spaceships, pointless exploration, no sense of fear, vampires, woman with no reason of being naked, and ZOMBIES!!!!!!
    Thanks for the poison, with out you i would never know these (fun) movies exist.
    (came to USA 1997)

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