Lifeforce (1985, UK/US)

Director Tobe Hooper's science-fiction horror/adventure/disaster tale (and 'guilty-pleasure' film) had the working title Space Intruders or Vampires from Outer Space - similar to the name of the original 1976 Colin Wilson novel The Space Vampires upon which the film was based. Its main tagline referred to the apocalyptic threat of a race of space vampires in London to turn the populace into zombies: "In the blink of an eye, the terror begins."

It was a hybrid mix of many genres-subgenres: vampire, zombie, horror, science-fiction, and thriller, with many allusions to Alien (1979) (due to a co-scripting effort by Dan O'Bannon).

• in the film's opening, the mission of the British-American H.M.S. Churchill space shuttle, under the command of Col. Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback), was to intercept and study Halley's Comet; during its space journey in August of 1985, it discovered a 150-mile long, needle-shaped derelict alien spaceship hidden within the comet's coma (tail or atmospheric cloud)
• four crew members wearing EVA suits were dispatched to investigate inside the derelict alien spacecraft, where in a massive chamber, they discovered thousands of giant, shriveled and dessicated dead bats or floating winged creatures (prehistoric-looking), and three naked humanoid creatures ("two nude males and one female"); the "three bodies perfectly preserved" were within three clear, coffin-like suspended-animation crystalline sleep cases hanging upside down; one of the astronauts - Col. Carlsen - regarded the female specimen as "perfect"; with one sample creature and the three cases onboard, the HMS Churchill sped off from Halley's Comet

Three Bodies Perfectly Preserved in Crystalline Cases Within Derelict Alien Spacecraft

• 30 Days Later, a rescue mission arranged by mission control sent the US sister-ship, the Columbia, to dock with the non-communicative Churchill; it discovered that the interior of the Churchill had been gutted by fire and the crew were dead; one floating burned corpse provided a jump-scare; the crew were presumably drained of their 'lifeforce'; all that remained untouched and undamaged were the three suspended animation, crystal-coffin cases holding the aliens (vampiric)
• at the militarily-protected European Space Research Centre in London (as Halley's greenish comet trail filled the sky), the aliens in the cases were prepared for autopsies and dissection; the creatures, considered vampirish life-forms, were to be studied and investigated by the mission coordinator Dr. Leonard Bukovsky (Michael Gothard) and biochemist Dr. Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay), who would be assisted by SAS member Col. Colin Caine (Peter Firth).

Dr. Leonard Bukovsky (Michael Gothard)

Dr. Hans Fallada (Frank Finlay)

Col. Colin Caine (Peter Firth) - Member of SAS

• the main female alien space creature (or vampire) was named "Space Girl" (Mathilda May) [Note: French actress Mathilda May as the alien vampire was spectacularly nude for most of her screen time.]; the other two space vampire-aliens were credited as 1st Vampire (Chris Jagger) and 2nd Vampire (Bill Malin)
• at around 2 am, the "Space Girl" who was laid out on an examining table under a blanket, suddenly opened her eyes and awakened, and sat straight up; she slipped off the table and smiled/glared at a helmeted guard (John Keegan); the beautiful naked, human-looking creature removed the guard's helmet, and kissed him - sucking the energy 'lifeforce' out of him, and creating a flickering power surge in the room; she turned him into a dessicated, shriveled-up mummy corpse with leathery withered skin
• then, the vampirish creature seductively walked up to Dr. Bukovsky (who had rushed into the lab after viewing what was happening on closed circuit TV), overpowered him with her feminine presence and suggested: "Use my body," but he was saved from the guard's fate by the intervention of Professor Fallada and other guards
• the naked "Space-Girl" calmly walked out of the facility by subduing-zapping other guards in the main lobby and blowing out the large window panels with her supernatural powers; she went on to further terrorize London
• when the scientists met together, Dr. Bukovsky described how he was overpowered: "It was the most overwhelmingly feminine presence I've ever encountered"; Fallada described her as a vampire: "I think that girl, creature, drained energy, lifeforce, partially from Bukovsky and totally from the guard....In a sense, we're all vampires. We drain energy from other life-forms. The difference is one of degree. That girl was no girl. She is totally alien to this planet and our life-form and totally dangerous"
• it appeared to the researchers that the aliens were a race of "space vampires" - who consumed "life-force" energy rather than blood from their victims; the two humanoid males then awoke and approached the guards armed with assault rifles, and were unaffected by a barrage of bullets; all three vampires were able to transform into the identity of others - the two males took on the identity of guards to evade detection and escape
• it was demonstrated how all infected or zombified victims could then regenerate or transform themselves after two hours and become "living dead" - to continue the exponential, chain-reaction cycle of draining others (with a two-hour time limit until they needed a new energy transfusion); otherwise, they would permanently dessicate themselves (turning into a pile of dust)
• this pattern or phenomenon was seen to occur numerous times, beginning when the dessicated guard sucked the lifeforce from one of the autopsy medical-pathologists, and exchanged places with him
• meanwhile, the alien girl was transforming herself by possessing various host bodies; her first target was an unnamed Hyde Park female who was completely dessicated
• the astronaut-commander of the Churchill - Col. Tom Carlsen was discovered to have survived; he had jettisoned in an escape pod from the H.M.S. Churchill, entered Earth's atmosphere, and landed in Texas; he was returned to London, where he described (with partial flashbacks) how he had set fire to the shuttle to prevent the disastrous cargo from exposing the entire Earth, since crew members were dying one by one (their lives were drained) on the return trip
• Col. Carlsen made a crucial confession when he admitted his psychic attraction to the "Space-Girl": "Part of me didn't want to leave. She killed all my friends, and I still didn't want to leave. Leaving her was the hardest thing I ever did"
• during a nightmarish, red-tinged hallucination, Col. Carlsen dreamed that the "Space-Girl" visited him while he was sleeping to make love, and drained him of most of his energy (he complained: "You're taking too much of me!"); through hypnosis, it was determined that Carlsen was closely and psychically linked to the alien female
• then, it appeared that the "Space-Girl", as she moved "from body to body, mind to mind," had decided to take only a small amount of energy from each new victim - so that there was no trail of bodies; Carlsen and Col. Caine went to Yorkshire to investigate
• the two found that the "Space-Girl's" next target was Ellen Donaldson (Nancy Paul), a seductive (and masochistic) nurse who worked at a Yorkshire hospital-asylum (ThurIstone HospitaI) for the criminally-insane; on her way to work, hitch-hiking Ellen then seduced a healthy male named Ned Price (Sidney Livingstone), and then the "Space-Girl" left her and possibly went on to inhabit the body of one of the inmates - a child murderer named Jeffrey Sykes (Ken Parry) - a mentally-deficient patient in a padded solitary confinement cell at the institution.
• however, the spirit of the Girl went on to possess the the body of the asylum manager Dr. Armstrong (Patrick Stewart); Armstrong was heavily-sedated in order to trap the Girl inside of him; Carlsen was able to talk to the "Space-Girl" captive inside of Armstrong; she could be heard pleading with him: "CarIsen, be with me....I Iove you...."
• the voice of the "Space-Girl" inside Armstrong then confessed, through further hypnosis, that the aliens had taken on human forms after entering the minds of the Churchill astronauts; the "Space-Girl" had taken her "perfect" shape from Carlsen's own dreams and mind: "I took my shape from your mind. I took your language. I became the woman I found there, in your deepest thoughts, your deepest needs. I am the feminine in your mind, Carlsen"
• Carlsen appeared to go crazy, yelling at Armstrong (who had taken the form of the "Space-Girl") as he begged: "Where are you? Where's your body? Let her go!" But then Carlsen began begging for his own captivated life: "Let me go!"; as Armstrong's body convulsed and blue light emanated from his body, Caine overdosed him to help stop the escape of the Space-Girl from his body
• Carlsen then became gravely concerned about the possible imminent threat of alien annihilation: "It's aIready spreading....You didn't stop it. It's too late"; Carlsen and Caine both worried together: "Could the girl have been deliberately leading us away from London? Is it possible we didn't find all of her victims? If we didn't find all the victims, if there are others besides the girl in the park, the thing would spread in a chain reaction, geometrically, until by now - Christ!"
• as the body of a heavily-sedated Armstrong was transported back to London in a helicopter, the alien "Space-Girl" finally broke free of Armstrong's body, coalesced into a bloody-red representation of the Space-Girl creature and disappeared: ("We've lost her, she's gone")
• in another full (second) flashback by Carlsen about his time on the Churchill, he divulged to Caine that he had actually sabotaged the mission: ("I didn't want the Churchill to be abIe to reach Earth. And if it did, I didn't want anyone to know what happened"); he described the experience when he was spiritually called to the Space-Girl and fully connected to her: ("She wanted me"); he opened her vampire-like container and shared his spiritual 'life-force' with her: "I opened her sealed animation case. Either I did it or she did it. I couldn't heIp myseIf. I've never experienced such -- I was in love on a level you've never known, Caine. It terrifies me. My memory plays tricks on me. She was calling me. Her power was spiritual. She wanted me, Caine. It was more than spiritual. She took some of my energy. And she gave me some of her energy. They must have been living off of each other when we found 'em. There were onIy three of 'em left. She killed all of my men, one by one. But I survived. She wanted me to survive. She chose me! Why!? Why!?"
• however, Caine reminded Carlsen of her real nature: "Carlsen, she's not human. She's not a woman. She'll destroy you. She's destroyed worlds"

During Carlsen's Flashback About the Churchill, Carlsen Described How He Became Entranced by Space-Girl

• like "vampires of legend," the spawned alien creatures were spreading infection like a plague in London (even infecting the Prime Minister (Peter Porteous) who attacked his own secretary Miss Haversham (Katherine Schofield)); they caused the streets to be overrun with rabid-like, vampire-alien-zombies; there were reports that the alien vessel was "bearing down on the Earth" and was in "geostationary orbit" over London; with martial law ineffective, a thermonuclear device delivered by NATO (now in military command), might need to be detonated to sterilize the air-space
• all of the drained human life-force energy (blue lights symbolizing human souls) was seen being directed first toward the "Space-Girl" and then collected by the awaiting, immense 150 mile-long, umbrella-shaped alien mothership parked above her, that had broken free of the comet
• Dr. Fallada discovered how to kill the alien vampires - using an iron "leaded metal shaft" (or sword); the two male vampires were successfully eliminated by impalement just below the heart (through the energy center) by the sword (one by Dr. Fallada, and later one by Col. Caine); but then, it was up to the chosen one, Carlsen, to confront and kill the "Space-Girl"; however, through his psychic connection, Carlsen felt that he was being drawn back to reunite or "mate" with the female alien, to "end the madness" and to give back the energy she had originally given him
• a gigantic blue column of light (the lifeforce of countless human souls) ascended and funneled its way into the umbrella-shaped alien mothership hovering above ("All those littIe blue lights going up toward the cIouds are human souls")
• in the finale, Carlsen was summoned or drawn to the altar inside St. Paul's Cathedral where the "Space-Girl" reclined in a crypt ("the crypt of kings and queens"), as the lifeforce energy was beamed up to the spaceship; he approached her and accepted her entreaty as she sat up: "Come. Be with me. I need you. It was aIways intended you shouId find us and bring us to Earth. The web of destiny carries your bIood and souI back to the genesis of my Iife-form. Come, be with me"
• during an ecstatic nude embrace and kiss within the swirling column of light, he asked: "What are these feeIings? Why do I feeI so cIose to you, need you?"; she admitted (with the film's final lines of dialogue) that he was one of them - a vampire: "Because you're one of us. You always have been. You're like me. Be with me. Just a little more. Just a little more"

Finale: The Space Girl's Merging During Sex/Death with Col. Carlsen

• self-sacrificially during mid-coitus, to stop the flow of energy, Carlsen then skewered both of them with the leaden metal stake-sword offered to him by Col. Caine; electric red and blue rays and swirls emanated from their bodies as their souls merged together into the blue column of light; the combined blue energy from their two bodies blasted off the top of St. Paul's Cathedral dome as the two moved up the light column into the vessel; the energy from the blue light was sufficient to power up the giant alien spaceship, to enable it to disengage from Earth's orbit and set itself on a course toward Halley's Comet