This is actually pretty nice sci-fi flick with some very decent special effects for the day. It’s more engrossing than gross even though some of the effects are gruesome. Before the CGI people took over, they did all the effects in a practical way and you can see the difference. It may look cheesy or cheap to modern standards, but it also looks way more realistic.
The problem with this Tobe Hooper film is that it combines too many genres in one film. Based on the 1976 Colin Wilson book The Space Vampires… that title alone should give you all you need to know. It already is combing two genres, maybe in a clever way, since these creatures are sucking the lifeforce from people and not necessarily their blood. But then in the film their victims basically become zombies. So you’ve got Tobe Hooper (master of horror) filming a sci-fi movie about vampire aliens who turn people into zombies. It’s just too much thrown in the movie stew, and the reason why I feel suffered at the box office. People were just overwhelmed because at some point it becomes ridiculous. That point for me was the kiss between Steve Railsback and Patrick Stewart! Not that I wouldn’t mind kissing either one of them myself, but for modern viewers who hare watching for the first time, it’s like “Did Duane Barry just kiss Jean-Luc Picard?”
The literary term I’d like to look at is Portmanteau…when you combine two words to create a completely new word. For example Smoke and Fog creating Smog. A wonderful place to see this technique at work is the poem “The Jabberwocky” by Lewis Carroll with words like “slithy”=lithe and slimy and “mimsy”=flimsy and miserable. A more modern word from science is “liger”=combination of lion and tiger.
Guy on the right is Mick Jagger's brother in real life! I feel Lifeforce is just that…a portmanteau of too many genres. I admire the attempt at combination to create something new, but like in jazz, fusion can sometimes lead to a whole lot of noise that people just won’t understand. This is a good movie, but I’m afraid it may be seen more as a joke by modern audiences.
| Jabberwocky Lewis Carroll, 1832 - 1898 ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. “Beware the Jabberwock, my son The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun The frumious Bandersnatch!” He took his vorpal sword in hand; Long time the manxome foe he sought-- So rested he by the Tumtum tree, And stood awhile in thought. And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame, Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came! One, two! One, two! And through and through The vorpal blade went snicker-snack! He left it dead, and with its head He went galumphing back. “And hast thou slain the Jabberwock? Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” He chortled in his joy. ‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves Did gyre and gimble in the wabe; All mimsy were the borogoves, And the mome raths outgrabe. |
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