Double Bill Mini Musings: Space Vampires and Con-Artist Chemistry...

Lifeforce:
What's it about?
The crew of a space shuttle following the trail of Halley's Comet encounter a strange, alien craft hiding within the comet's tail. Inside things only get curiouser as they discover countless dried-up vampire bat-like creatures floating within the cavernous confines of the ship - and then they stumble across three nude figures in suspended animation. The strangest thing of all is that they appear to be human. However, when the space shuttle returns to earth, the ground team discover there's been a terrible fire that's wiped out the crew - but left the three humanoids intact. Back on Earth - London to be exact - events take a turn for the worse when the lifeforms awake and start to literally suck the life out of people!
Who would I recognise in it?
Steve Railsback, Patrick Stewart, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Aubrey Morris, Michael Gothard.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Directed by Tobe Hooper (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), co-written by Dan O'Bannon (Alien, Return of the Living Dead), and presented by Cannon Films during their 1980s heyday, Lifeforce has the genre credentials from the get-go. Based on Colin Wilson's novel "The Space Vampires" (surely a much better title than the non-specific "Lifeforce"), Hooper's film turns out to be a surprisingly fun outing. Jam-packed with special effects - from gruesome prosthetics and puppets to please horror fans, to a vast array of colourful optical effects to please sci-fi fans - Lifeforce unfurls in its final act into a stunningly epic extravaganza by way of a mystery. At just shy of two hours it's a touch overlong (and some plotting is either drawn out or repetitious), but the sheer volume of chaos and spectacle paper over the cracks (at $25m it was Cannon's largest film budget at that time) ... and that's without even mentioning Mathilda May's jaw-dropping beauty as the lead 'space vampire' who spends much of the movie seducing every male she encounters with all of her kit off (so that checks off fans of boobs, too!). If you're looking for something cheesy, something fun, something genre-tastic, ever-so-80s, and visually stunning, then it's worth checking out this somewhat-forgotten-about slice of sci-fi horror wham-bam mania. Good.

Click "READ MORE" below for 'Focus'...

Quadruple Bill Mini Musings: Carnies, Cinephiles, Adventure and Argento...

The Funhouse:
What's it about?
A group of teens go to the carnival on a double date and then dare each other to stay the night, but as they hide out inside the titular attraction, they witness the bloody results of the beast behind the Frankenstein's Monster mask getting out-of-hand. Will they get out alive?
Who would I recognise in it?
Elizabeth Berridge, Cooper Huckabee, Kevin Conway.
Great/Good/Alright/Shite?
Impatient viewers might tire of the build-up (it's at least forty minutes before the first blood is shed), but those into a beautifully captured atmosphere will be very happy indeed. Tobe Hooper's ghoulish little 1981 horror flick is a visual treat and populated by hyperbole-spouting carnies - the sort of crazy-eyed fringe-elements he covered so well in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Eaten Alive. Violence-wise it's pretty tame by today's standards (and yet this flick was at one point caught up in the Video Nasties scandal here in the UK), but blood and guts isn't the business that The Funhouse is in - this flick is more interested in the carnival atmosphere and that garish sense of fun mixed in with (sometimes cheesy) scares. In some ways it's dated, and despite some apparent behind-the-scenes troubles regarding how certain scenes were shot, Hooper's film is jolly good fun. As an aside, it's interesting to note that while it does play along with genre conventions, it also breaks them too - the "final girl" smokes pot and gets saucy with her fella. It's a big, hearty "BOO!" scare from a grease-painted freak with booze on his breath. Good.

Click "READ MORE" for Hugo, Sherlock Holmes 2, and Inferno...