Lifeforce

Lifeforce (1985), possibly better known as the "Naked Space Vampire Movie," is--a very strange film. In 1985, a European Space Shuttle mission to Halley's Comet finds in the comet's tail an abandoned spacecraft with three (apparent) naked humans, two men and a woman, in suspended animation encased in glass pods. Later, after taking the pods aboard, the Shuttle goes out of contact with ground control. A rescue mission finds that all the crew are dead but the three people in the pods are still alive. The three not-really-humans are brought to Earth, whereupon they wake up, blow the hell out of the European Space Research Center, and escape. Meanwhile, the sole survivor of the shuttle's crew has returned to earth in an escape pod with a tale of terror...

And then it gets even weirder. Has to be seen to be believed.

Not to be confused with Life Energy.


 * Badass: Col. Colin Caine. Full stop. Wandering through  with the full knowledge of the danger, achieving every objective and coming out alive. Yeah, Badass.
 * Big Bad: Space Girl.
 * Body Surf: After her escape the female vampire starts switching from body to body to evade capture.
 * Comet of Doom: The arrival of Halley's Comet foretells doom for London, as it contains an alien spaceship that carried space vampires. Discussed, as the characters mention that the appearance of Halley's Comet has been considered a warning of disaster for centuries, possibly because seeing it meant the alien ship within was near enough to allow the vampires to reach Earth and feed.
 * Downer Ending:.
 * Evil Sounds Deep: The male vampire at the end.
 * Fan Service: There's a reason why the movie is popularly known as "that naked space vampire movie". This was suggested by writer Dan O'Bannon, who also put a nude girl in his next movie, Return of the Living Dead.
 * Fan Disservice: When space girl visits Carlson in his dreams, she proceeds to make out with him while lightning is engulfing the room and animalistic shrieks and howls can be heard all around them.
 * The Film of the Book: The Space Vampires
 * Foe Yay: Carlson is obsessed with the beautiful space vampire he is hunting, even though to touch her means death. There's even a Ho Yay moment when he's driven to kiss her while she's occupying the body of Patrick Stewart. He later discovers the reason for his obsession is that she took the image of the perfect woman from his subconscious.
 * A Form You Are Comfortable With: The vampires assumed human form by probing the minds of the astronauts for suitable shapes. Their real forms are the hybernating bat-like creatures in their spacecraft, notably seen when the female vampire visits Carlson in his dreams, and when
 * Full-Frontal Assault: Hi there, Mathilda May. The scene where a completely nude May goes around the Research Center wreaking havoc is memorable, to say the least.
 * Gainax Ending:
 * Gender-Inverted Trope: A gender inversion of the Dracula model where a male vampire with a couple of 'brides' dominates Weak-Willed females -- here we have the beautiful Space Girl (with her two male brides) manipulating the desires of Carlson and other random men. This point has been missed by those critics who accuse the film of being misogynist.
 * Gorn:
 * Hey, It's That Guy! : If you're a fan of TV movie crime dramas/miniseries, you'll recognize Carlson as having played both Charles Manson and Ed Gein. Oh and Captain Picard plays the director of the Asylum.
 * Horny Devils: At least the female vampire operates by this method.
 * Horror Hunger: What human victims of the space vampires suffer--they need to drain others of life energy or they will literally shrivel up and die.
 * Life Energy: What the vampires feed on.
 * Liquid Assets: The humans' titular lifeforce.
 * Ms. Fanservice: The spectacularly gorgeous Mathilda May, playing "Space Girl" (really), starts the movie wearing absolutely nothing, and then graduates to wearing next-to-nothing.
 * No Name Given: Sorry, "Space Girl" does not count. Ditto with the other two members of her species that show up.
 * Nuke'Em: NATO quickly opens possibility of the nuclear option if the British army can't contain the vampiric outbreak in London from spreading any further.
 * Oh Crap: Several moments in the film,
 * Our Vampires Are Different: Turns out that the vampire myth stems from these space "vampires", who visit Earth with Halley's Comet to suck the life energy from humans.
 * Our Zombies Are Different: Humans fed on by the vampires become zombie-type creatures which hunt for other humans to suck lifeforce from.
 * Psychic Link: Between Col. Carlsen, the only survivor from the original space mission (Steve Railsback) and Space Girl.
 * Special Effect Failure: The zombie corpses are impressive, but they move unconvincingly.
 * To Serve Man
 * Vampires Are Sex Gods
 * Vampiric Draining: Naturally.
 * The Virus: A vampire zombie virus.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: London seriously gets out of control towards the end.
 * The Virus: A vampire zombie virus.
 * Zombie Apocalypse: London seriously gets out of control towards the end.