Lifeforce

Saw Lifeforce, a bizarre film about space vampires.  Despite it's wild premise, the film clearly had a lot of effort and money put into it and leans heavily into both sci-fi and vampire conventions.  It's not high art but it's definitely unique and full of exotic imagery and needs to be seen to be believed.

The film opens on astronauts discovering an artificial structure built into Halley's comet.  Inside this, there are three nude, beautiful human beings (one woman and two men) inside of glass force-field coffins.  They are brought aboard the ship and brought to earth where they emerge from the coffins and begin running amok on earth, draining life-force and transforming their bodies.

The film is campy and sleazy.  The two male vampires and disposed of quickly and never seen again.  The woman spends a lot of time nude, wandering about the countryside and seducing men.  There's a lot of erotic dreams the protagonists have involving her and soft-focus psychic visions galore.  Like Species, I feel this film also uses soft-core porn as a marketing hook.  If you enjoy breasts, you get to see quite a few here.  In some scenes there are strategically places cables and shadows, but most of the time everything's on display.

The film isn't just breasts however.  The opening sequence of exploring the alien ship is eerie and beautiful.  The astronauts comment that it looks like a human heart and their breathing is played heavily on the soundtrack.  It's like something out of 2001 A Space Odyssey.  Much later in the film, after the vampires are on earth, the corpses of the dead vomit up blood which forms a blood-statue of the vampire woman.  It's mere spectacle to be sure, but spectacular none the less.

The film is a campy romp.  It's much better than the premise would make it seem (space vampires!) and although it doesn't entirely escape the gutter (lots of boobs) there's definitely some great moments and you will see images that you will see in no other movie.  I think it's the best-made B-movie I've ever seen.