Trailer
Plot summary
Hidden in the coma of Halley's Comet is a vessel of alien make, and inside it a crew finds figures preserved in glass: two men and a woman, unclothed and unmoving. The hold also contains hundreds of bat-like creatures, desiccated and still. The Churchill's commander, Colonel Tom Carlsen, has the sleepers and one of the creatures taken aboard for the journey home. During the return trip, mission control loses contact with the shuttle. A rescue mission arrives to find the Churchill gutted by fire, its crew dead and its escape pod missing, yet the containers intact. The bodies are carried to a research center in London.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lifeforce (1985)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Billy Idol was offered a lead role as a vampire by Tobe Hooper, who had directed the video for his song "Dancing with Myself", but turned it down in February 1984 because of touring commitments.
- John Gielgud said he was offered an enormous sum to appear in a film called Space Vampires in April 1984, and nearly accepted, but said no after the figure was cut in half.
- Lifeforce went over schedule and was shut down at one point because the studio ran out of money, leaving some important scenes never shot, according to Bill Malin, who plays one of the male vampires.
- Henry Mancini produced a 90-minute score of occasionally atonal and ambient music with the London Symphony Orchestra, having taken the job for a planned essentially dialogue-free 15-minute opening, after James Horner had been asked first.
- Tobe Hooper moved the story from the novel's asteroid belt to Halley's Comet because the comet would pass Earth in early 1986, less than a year after release, and changed the setting from the mid-21st century to the present day.
- The column of energy rising through St Paul's Cathedral near the end of the film was engineered by art director Tony Reading using retroreflective material against black velvet, with a crew member blowing cigar smoke into its bottom before front projecting the image onto a screen behind the actors.
- The model London destroyed in the film was actually the remains of Tucktonia, a model village near Christchurch that had closed shortly before shooting, while the alien spaceship was modeled after an artichoke.
