2315 Words On "Lifeforce." Yes. "Lifeforce." | Far Flungers

As a result, he received a three-film contract with the then-fledgling Cannon Group, who were trying to corner the world film market with an odd combination of art films from the likes of Zeffirelli with low-rent action fodder featuring Charles Bronson and Chuck Norris, with "Lifeforce" as an early project. Working with a hefty budget and without the whip hand of a creatively imposing producer, Hooper wound up producing a well-financed version of the kind of crackpot filmmaking that he established himself with in the first place. Having been given a crazy story to work with, Hooper clearly decided that the only way to deal with it was to match nutty with nutty and the result is the kind of movie where you keep thinking that it can't possibly get any stranger and then it proceeds to do just that.

For example, while most movies of this type might have introduced a naked female creature into the proceedings and then either given her clothes or gone the "Austin Powers" route to avoid showing any naughty bits, Hooper has Mathilda May let it all hang out to such a degree throughout that whoever had the job of preparing a version of the film for broadcast on commercial television must have clocked in a lot of overtime. Then there are the scenes that so completely flout the bounds of convention that they boggle the mind--mine comes when Carlsen tries to psychically extract information from a woman and discovers that she is "an extreme masochist" who wants him to slap her around a bit before giving anything up. (That part is immediately topped when, warned that he should leave the room before the slapping begins, his British colleague pulls up a chair and dryly remarks "After all, I am a natural voyeur.") Hell, the state of the mental health of "Lifeforce" can pretty much be determined by the fact that the closest thing it has to a hero is played by the guy best known for portraying Charles Manson in "Helter Skelter."

At the same time, there are plenty of other reasons to enjoy "Lifeforce" in addition to all the craziness. Although it is tempting to portray most horror films from the late 1980's on--especially ones involving vampires--as metaphors for AIDS, such connections are remarkably blatant here, remarkably so considering that the movie was being released just at the time that the disease was finally beginning to penetrate into the mainstream. From a technical standpoint, the movie is never less than impressive thanks to the inspired special effects courtesy of the legendary John Dykstra--even though some of them may look a little cartoonish today, they oddly help contribute to the hallucinatory nature of the proceedings. And if nothing else, even detractors of "Lifeforce" have to admit that the final half-hour is pretty spectacular as London descends into chaos before a climax so cheerfully bewildering that it makes the final minutes of "The Black Hole" seem staid by comparison.