 From the director of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist, comes a movie you've never heard of, shot way back in 1985 by the director, Toby Hooper. And that film is life force. I'm gonna talk about it today, because of course I am. Listen, I didn't just wake up one morning, look in the mirror, have a deep thought and think, Adam, you gotta look up Toby Hooper's collection, find one you haven't seen, and check it out. Nay, this movie was requested by a patron over at patreon.com slash adam does movies at the mithril level. For $30 a month, you can plop down a movie review, demand I watch it, and I have to give you a shout out. Movie this week is life force. The request coming from heroic badass 94. Seems appropriate. Let's give it a go. I had genuinely never heard of this movie until it was requested. I see it. Where did this come from? How did I miss it? It's by the guy that did freakin' Poltergeist. I love that movie. And Texas Chainsaw Massacre. This just somehow skirted under the radar. And it's not for the lack of trying, it has a huge budget. Or at least it looks like it on screen. There's definitely a lofty scale here. Whether or not Hooper hits this is debatable. I'd say for the time period, he did a pretty admirable job. As far as effects goes, it's not too shabby, but let's get back to that in a second. I want to break down the plot, which is kind of intricate, I guess. On face value, I could say it's about space vampires coming to Earth to drain all the resources. This isn't their first rodeo either. These creatures have gone from planet to planet, pillaging and plundering, taking the souls of its victims for sustenance, and then moving on. These aliens are taking refuge inside the tail end of Haley's Comet, undetected, until they are in fact detected, by a group of British and American astronauts on the ship Church Hill. They dock this bad boy, this long rod, in space. They come aboard and see a bunch of dead space bats floating. This whole sequence is actually really cool. It looks pretty badass. Yes, retro, of course. Yes, dated, as all hell. But in a sense, it works really well. Kind of like a space odyssey. I really dug the first 15 or so minutes of this movie, completely invested, was hoping it would stay this course, and we'd just get more information about this weird race, and it would take place mostly in these bizarre surreal settings. Unfortunately, it doesn't, and we head to Earth. Movie does continue at a decent clip, though, the whole way through, and what helps this movie more than anything else are the space boobs. Because, you see, Life Force has a secret weapon. In fact, it has two. And that's Matilda May's boobs. They are breathtaking, to say the least. This woman is gorgeous, beyond all compare. My wife watched this with me, some of it, she got bored, eventually fell asleep. But even she was like, damn, those are real, and they are spectacular. And I was just thinking, yeah, I'm kind of into this movie. Joking aside somewhat, I mean, female body appreciation month, of course, but jokes aside, this movie, script-wise, is really cool. On paper, this is a very fascinating story. I like the idea of the vampire myth coming from these bizarre space creatures. They are the reason why we have the vampire myth on Earth, because they've actually been here before, scouting the location. And the space girl and the two guys that made their way back to Earth on the Churchill spaceship, they're up to no good. And they have plans, they have big plans. And that is, of course, to suck this planet dry. But in order to do so, they have to get to know the inhabitants, how we think, how we speak. And so that means absorbing some of the Life Force of one of the passengers early on. And that poor bastard's Carlson, this guy is in for a world of hurt. He's gonna be the sole survivor of the Churchill, because by his own hands, they're all burned alive. Whether or not he was under the influence of Space Girl, or he was doing it himself, he doesn't even know. Because these vampiric creatures have a special ability where they can make you want them and do whatever they want. Very much like a vampire with the whole control thing, unless it's Twilight, in which case, stupid, and we don't count that. And as the movie progresses, we learn more about their kind, what they're up to, how they have this connection with each other, and how they can bounce from human to human, or alien to alien, because the body is just that. It's just a vessel for them to travel through. Their mind, their soul is completely detached if it wants to be. And this is gonna pose a problem for our British spies, astronauts and whatnot, because it's almost impossible to kill these fuckers. The only way to do it is with a good old-fashioned stake below the heart, which is where their energy is stored. And I dug the lore of this thing, too. Early on, we're introduced to those dead bats in space. It was assumed that they were killed by something, and then it was presumed later that the vampires sucked their energy. But then it's revealed that they are those creatures. They just have had no souls to digest. So they've been dying out over periods of time, and only the three that took that human form survived by feeding off of each other. And then they take the form of the most pleasing humans that men and women desired. It's a very clever story, one that I could see them remaking today with all the modern technology and making it work a lot better. Because as it stands, Life Force is watchable, but it's not the thing. Okay, the thing is pretty ageless, pretty timeless. It didn't require such amazing effects work as this movie does. The scope of this movie is a little too big for the budget. We do have a Patrick Stewart sighting, a little cameo from him, acting his heart out, pretending to be possessed by one of these creatures, flopping on a table. He gets to kiss our lead character before he inevitably decomposes in front of them. It's a great little scene. Patrick Stewart's been perpetually 65 years for his entire career. So my big takeaway from Life Force is, no, it's no poltergeist. No, it's no the thing. It has shades of both of them. Definitely has some of that effects work from poltergeists with a lot of shining lights, a lot of blue energy moving around. It definitely has inspiration from the thing, from the different makeup and prosthetics and animatronics going on there. There's some pretty cool stuff on display. And then there's also some really rough stuff as well. It's the 80s. They're experimenting. They're trying, at least. And the heart is in the right spot on this film. It's very over the top. It's very nerdy. I appreciate it. And as a film buff, I would recommend it. If you're looking for something a little out there, a little different, Life Force is one for you to check out. And also, Matilda May once again, if nothing else, watch it from Matilda May in that perfect form. She's naked a lot in this movie too. At first I thought it was masquerading as like a soft-core porn, but no, it's a legit movie. It's a legit movie with a little bit of extra class and a little bit of extra ass for my enjoyment. And hopefully yours. I want to once again thank Heroic Badass94 for this recommendation. I really captured my soul with it. That's for damn sure. And thank you to all my Patreon members and YouTube Join members, especially at the Mithril level. I appreciate that. If you're new to the channel, please think about subscribing, although I can't imagine YouTube's really recommending a review of Life Force. But you never know what the algorithm's going to pull up. Like this video if you had some fun. Please subscribe. I'd love to have you stick around as I post tons of movie reviews, both nostalgic, old and new alike, every single week. We'd love to have more people stick around. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some Matilda May googling to do for research purposes.