LIFEFORCE

   Film (1985). Cannon. Dir Tobe Hooper, starring Steve Railsback, Peter Firth, Frank Finlay, Mathilda May, Patrick Stewart. Screenplay Dan O'Bannon, Don Jakoby, based on The Space Vampires (1976) by Colin WILSON. 101 mins. Colour.

   Astronauts exploring Halley's Comet discover three humanoid ALIEN bodies in suspended animation in crystal containers in a derelict alien spacecraft, and recover them. All but one of the astronauts die; the strange bodies awaken back in London, and prove to be shapeshifting vampiric lifeforms which, by sucking the lifeforce from people, turn them into withered zombies who themselves can pass on the zombie infection. Soon London becomes a zombie city. The narrative borders on incoherence, non sequiturs abound, and the film is a melodramatic travesty, especially the performance of Finlay as a "thanatologist" (student of death). And yet it has its virtues. John Dykstra, famous forhis work in STAR WARS (1977), produces arresting special effects, and Hooper, best known for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974), directs with anintensity verging on the hysterical. The film, though a mess (partly through being based on Wilson's heavily philosophical but muddled novel), is original and, despite all the zombies, avoids cliche. May's nude performance as the female alien is striking.

   PN