Review: Lifeforce (1985)

While watching Lifeforce, I couldn’t help thinking about how many possibilities were squandered, not to mention the talent involved. Director Tobe Hooper is responsible for classics like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and its sequel (both of which I loved in different ways), Poltergeist, and the often chilling made for TV adaptation of Stephen King’s ‘Salem’s Lot. Co-writer Dan O’Bannon was one of the scribes on 1979’s Alien and wrote and directed the 1985 horror classic Return of the Living Dead. Add special effects by John Dykstra and music by Henry Mancini to that combo and it should have been the recipe for a sci-fi/horror classic.

So why did Lifeforce go so horribly wrong in so many ways?

As the film opens, a joint expedition of British and American astronauts aboard the space shuttle Churchill discovers an alien vessel hiding within Halley’s Comet. When a small group led by Colonel Carlsen (Steve Railsback) enters the ship, they find bat-like creatures drained of all bodily fluids as well as three perfectly preserved naked humanoid bodies in suspended animation. The crew remove one of the creatures and the three bodies and take them back to the ship before returning to Earth.

Mission control loses contact with the ship, sends another to investigate, and are shocked to discover a lifeless crew presumably killed by a fire that raged throughout the Churchill. However, the three bodies (one female, two male) are found intact and taken to a space research center in London. The female (Mathilda May) awakens and siphons the “lifeforce” out of a guard as well as some energy from one of the doctors before escaping into the city where she proceeds to leave bodies in her wake. Anyone who has had their “lifeforce” drained becomes a dried husk that eventually reanimates and, in turn, attempts to feed to infuse new life into themselves, much as a legendary vampire would. If they fail, they explode into dust.

Colonel Carlsen is found alive in an escape pod and teams up with SAS Colonel Caine (Peter Firth) to destroy the vampire like creatures before they decimate all of London and then the rest of the world.

And this is where the tale begins to break down. Suddenly the female vampire can shape-shift, the victims act more like zombies than vampires and all logic pretty much goes out the window. Carlsen shares a psychic bond with the female vampire (because, hey, that works when the actual plot runs into a jam) and the “lifeforce” of humans become souls that are harvested to the ship.

Lifeforce begins well enough with some really sharp special effects that look gorgeous in high definition (I happened to catch it on the MGMHD network where, in the past few months, I’ve found more than a few gems from the studio’s huge library), but degenerates into a near convoluted mess as it progresses. The film lacks an identity because it tries to involve too many elements from different genres. While it should be a pretty straightforward sci-fi/horror flick, Lifeforce adds dashes of action, romance and a bit of metaphysics and religion into the mix.

Can all of that work? Certainly, if done correctly. I’d even go so far as to recommend remaking this movie with a modern view. However, Lifeforce in its 1985 incarnation is akin to one of those large pizza chains who try to churn out one gimmicky pizza after another to keep people interested instead of just trying to make a damned good, simple pie.

Lifeforce grade: D+

Review: Butcher Boys (2013)

I watch a lot of cooking shows and if there’s one lesson I’ve learned, it’s that a chef who has a poorly conceived dish will try to overcompensate in preparation by adding too many ingredients. Without proper technical knowledge and more than a little luck on his or her side, the execution will ultimately result in inedible garbage.

In the case of Butcher Boys, the basic dish was an updated variation on the horror classic, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And the ingredients? Take the scraps from the original film, add moments from: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (ala a bridge chase between two cars and the over the top guy looking for his daughter), Blue Velvet (with a foppish character channeling Dean Stockwell’s Ben), Silence of the Lambs (get that classical music in there!), Scarface (excessive profanity as dialogue which in this case works against the film, not for it), and, oddly enough, The Warriors and the TV series Angel (with thugs who appear as if they just walked out of auditions for both and decided to form a club).

All of the ingredients are there and the stuff that’s borrowed is at least borrowed from some strong, memorable source material. So let’s see if the filmmakers had the technical knowledge and luck to combine all of this into a quality dish.

Our heroine is even frightened as to what comes next.

The story goes (and at this point, I’m apt to finish that thought with the lyric “the truth is no one knows” from Steve Winwood’s “Wake Me Up On Judgement Day” because that would be more appropriate) something like this:

Four friends–two boys and two girls–are out at a birthday celebration. Then they stop at a convenience store where one of the girls pisses off two random guys and keys their car. The four take off with the random guys in hot pursuit. In the chase, the two guys hit a dog that belongs to a gang just hanging out. When they stop, they’re beaten by half the gang while the other half (the slick ones wearing leather jackets) picks up the car chase to track down the original four. They find them and, after wrecking their car, continue hunting them by foot through the sprawling, dilapidated urban area in downtown San Antonio. Leather jacket guys kill the boys and capture the girls. They toy with one for a bit and then subject the other (Sissy, played by Ali Faulkner, providing the film’s sole redeeming quality) to medical experiments. They decide “she’s the one”, grown men say “fuck” and “fudge packer”, and Sissy escapes again only to be recaptured. There’s a weirdo dinner party complete with a cross dressing guy who flicks his tongue a lot while a hulking monster growls in the corner.

Just in case you thought I was lying, this actually happened.

At this point, I peeked to see the remaining running time in the film when a character yells: “Told you it wasn’t over! What’d you think, we were going to let you go?” Obviously they were directing that toward Sissy but I also have a sneaking suspicion they were taunting me.

Eventually, Sissy makes a mad dash in a desperate attempt at one final escape, hurling herself out a window where a crowd is gathered outside protesting…something. Again they give chase and just when I thought the film couldn’t get any more ridiculous, with six minutes left out come the semi-automatics and, inexplicably, a rocket launcher.

Butcher Boys is billed as a horror/comedy. Correct me if I’m wrong, but a horror film is supposed to be terrifying. This isn’t, though there are some decent effects for gore hounds. As for the comedic aspect, I found that I laughed more at it and not with it.

The film has an interesting pedigree as it was scripted by Kim Henkel, the co-writer of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But he’s also the writer-director of Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation which means that he’s kind of stuck on this one particular idea and in a creative rut as a result. It was a great idea once, similar to reheated leftovers twice, and by the third go around, it’s ready to go into a refuse receptacle.

You can decide for yourself if Butcher Boys is worth it based on the trailer.

But if you want my advice based on what the chefs concocted for Butcher Boys, they can please pack their knives (and rocket launcher) and go.

Butcher Boys grade: F

Review: Dawn of the Dead (1978)

It’s hard to believe that it’s been 35 years since Dawn of the Dead premiered. Boy, does time fly!

I was a wee lad of nine when the film hit theaters and, unfortunately, deemed too young to see something so graphic. It’s not that my mom was uptight or a prude. Hell, she let me watch Soap on TV and took me to films like The Deep at the theater so she wasn’t averse to opening me up to pop culture.

But Dawn of the Dead was different somehow. Still, when I saw the trailer on TV, I desperately wanted to see it.

Can you blame me? I mean, look how cool that is! A world gone mad! The dead eating people! Who wouldn’t want to see that? Combine those attributes with the fact that the film was shot within a dozen miles of my house (in Monroeville Mall, a place at which I still occasionally shop) and it really increased my desire to see it.

However, it wasn’t until a few years later that I finally had my chance thanks to the advent of home video and good old VHS.

My family and I happened to be walking through another mall (Century III, which still stands today) and spotted a video rental store on the 3rd floor called Video Concepts. I begged and pleaded to get a membership and, bless her heart, my mom signed us up. It was $50 to join and $5 a day rental at a minimum of three days. So basically, Dawn of the Dead cost $65 to see in the very early 80s…and I didn’t even get popcorn or a drink with that!

Of course it was totally worth it.

It’s unfathomable for kids today to realize that, up until around the turn of the century, if you wanted a movie, you had to physically drive to a store like Blockbuster, peruse the shelves and hope what you wanted was available. Now you just have to hop online, click a button, sometimes pay a few dollars and you have your movie instantly. I’m glad I grew up when I did, though. It made obtaining the movie even sweeter because it was so special.

For those who haven’t seen it, Dawn of the Dead is a sequel to 1968’s Night of the Living Dead, a film that shocked both audiences and movie critics (check out Roger Ebert’s infamous review) alike for its sheer brutality. When Dawn begins, the throngs of dead returning to life have grown to astronomical levels and chaos rules. Two SWAT team members (Peter and Roger) hitch a ride with a pilot (Stephen) and his girlfriend (Francine) in a helicopter and plan to head out to the country and away from the city to find a safe haven. They stumble upon a suburban mall, a place filled with everything they could possibly need to survive almost indefinitely. The four lock the doors and use trucks to barricade themselves off from both the horde of the undead and others who might think about trespassing.

But nothing lasts forever.

Soon the four find themselves under siege from a gang of bikers and all hell breaks loose leading to the powerful climax. Who lives? Who dies? Who’s undead? You just have to see it to find out!

Dawn of the Dead was always more than just a horror film. It’s also a razor sharp satirical look at rampant consumerism. The four initially find the mall to be exciting, with everything they ever wanted at their fingertips. However, they realize that even though that might have been everyone’s wildest dream, once achieved, it becomes boring. And, even when you join the undead, you still have the innate drive to shop, to consume, regardless of whether it’s materialistic items or people.

Dawn of the Dead is arguably my favorite all time horror film, simply because of its meaning in my life. Yes, I could be swayed to move it down a notch sometimes to accommodate Halloween, The Thing, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Exorcist or a few others, but the fondness I have for it will nearly always make me consider it for the #1 spot.

In fact, I’m watching it right now. If you want a great Halloween movie, pop this one in for the holiday!

Grade: A+

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