Leave it to Tobe Hooper to turn an alien invasion into a two-hour cosmic tit show, complete with naked space vampires, exploding Londoners, and enough sexual electricity to fry the entire British power grid. Mathilda May spends most of the movie gloriously naked, sucking the life out of humanity while the special effects department apparently snorts the entire cocaine budget. Lifeforce is gloriously unhinged, gloriously horny, and proof that sometimes the greatest science-fiction movies are the ones that have completely lost their fucking minds.
Released in 1985, this $25-million Cannon Films monstrosity feels like somebody locked Alien, Dracula, and a particularly filthy issue of Penthouse in a room and told them to reproduce. The result is one of the most gloriously excessive spectacles of eighties genre filmmaking, a movie that doesn't merely go off the rails. It launches the fucking rails into orbit.
Imprint Films has delivered the kind of deluxe treatment that makes physical-media collecting worth the increasingly ridiculous expense. Two cuts, four discs, excellent 4K presentations, mountains of extras, and a gorgeous hardcover book make this a terrific shrine to one of the most deliriously ambitious genre films of the eighties. Lifeforce is big, stupid, beautiful, terrifying, spectacularly horny, and completely fucking magnificent. If you've ever wanted to watch London destroyed because humanity couldn't keep its hands off a naked alien, congratulations. Your definitive evening of entertainment has arrived.
The madness begins when a space expedition investigating Halley's Comet discovers an enormous alien spacecraft containing three suspiciously attractive humanoids preserved in crystalline coffins. Naturally, the astronauts bring them home, because apparently nobody aboard has ever watched a goddamn horror movie. Before long, May's extraterrestrial temptress is wandering around London in her birthday suit, draining unsuspecting victims of their lifeforce and leaving behind shriveled corpses that resemble beef jerky with dental problems.
Steve Railsback plays the increasingly hysterical astronaut Carlsen, Peter Firth supplies the stiff-upper-lip British determination, and Patrick Stewart turns up for one of the strangest encounters of his distinguished career. What starts as a respectable space exploration picture rapidly mutates into an apocalyptic carnival of psychic possession, sexual obsession, and walking corpses, culminating in London getting spectacularly fucked from above.
Hooper, fresh from Poltergeist, attacks the material with the restraint of a drunken sailor handed the keys to a nuclear submarine. Dan O'Bannon's screenplay, adapted with Don Jakoby from Colin Wilson's The Space Vampires, throws science fiction, gothic horror, erotic fantasy, and disaster-movie hysteria into a blender without bothering to put the lid on. John Dykstra's visual effects are frequently magnificent, particularly the swirling blue energy and spectacular destruction, while Henry Mancini delivers a thunderous orchestral score that treats this ridiculous business like the second coming of Lawrence of Arabia.
And then there's Mathilda May, whose otherworldly beauty and complete lack of clothing are not incidental to the movie's appeal. She's the film's irresistible, lethal center of gravity, a walking sexual apocalypse who makes humanity's extinction look like a reasonable price to pay for one unforgettable evening.
Does Lifeforce make a lick of sense? Fuck no. The plot occasionally behaves like a drunken octopus trying to assemble IKEA furniture, the dialogue veers between scientific exposition and absolute lunacy, and Railsback spends enough time looking terrified to qualify for hazard pay. But that's precisely why the movie is such a magnificent bastard. Cannon's Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus financed the sort of delirious, irresponsible cinematic excess that modern studio executives would strangle in its crib before the first naked vampire escaped her glass coffin. Beneath all the spectacular nonsense lies a genuinely fascinating nightmare about desire, mortality, and humanity's willingness to surrender everything to something beautiful and deadly. Lifeforce isn't a guilty pleasure. It's a fucking pleasure, period.
And Imprint Films has finally given this gloriously demented space-vampire orgy the deluxe treatment it deserves.
4K UHD + Blu-ray - Limited Edition Hardbox - Imprint Collection #480
Home Video Distributor: Imprint
Available on Blu-ray - January 23, 2026
Screen Formats: 2.35:1
Subtitles: English SDH
Video: Native 4K; Dolby Vision; HDR10
Audio: English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1
Discs: 4K Ultra HD; Blu-ray Disc; four-disc set
Region Encoding: 4K region-free; blu-ray locked to Region A
VIDEO
Imprint unleashes both cuts in native 2160p, framed at 2.35:1 with Dolby Vision and HDR10, sourced from a 4K scan of the original camera negative. The results are deliciously obscene in all the right ways: deep blacks, blazing blue energy, richly textured spacecraft interiors, and enough detail in the grotesque makeup effects to make you reconsider dinner.
Film grain remains visible, giving the picture a properly cinematic appearance rather than the waxy, digitally scrubbed bullshit that occasionally passes for restoration. The International Cut incorporates some additional footage sourced from an interpositive, producing minor fluctuations in contrast and detail, but nothing that derails the experience.
This is an impressive presentation of a movie that practically demands to be watched on the biggest screen in the house, preferably with the neighbors out of town.
AUDIO
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and two-channel presentations give Hooper's interstellar madhouse plenty of room to misbehave. Mancini's magnificent score comes charging through the speakers like the London Philharmonic has been possessed by Satan, while alien energy blasts, screaming victims, and the escalating destruction of London fill the soundstage with glorious chaos.
Dialogue remains intelligible even when the actors are delivering exposition that sounds like a physics professor suffering a nervous breakdown. The original matrixed stereo presentation is also available for purists, and the isolated music-and-effects option offers another opportunity to appreciate the film's sonic insanity.
There's no Dolby Atmos track on this release, but the existing mixes are sufficiently lively to give your home theater a thorough supernatural workout.
Supplements:
Commentary:
- See below
Special Features:
Imprint has packed this bastard with enough supplementary material to keep a dedicated Lifeforce lunatic occupied long after the space vampires have finished feeding. Three commentary tracks, a feature-length documentary, archival interviews, and vintage promotional material provide a fascinating look at the creative madness behind one of Cannon's most extravagant productions.
- Audio Commentary — Tobe Hooper and Tim Sullivan: The director revisits the production, its ambitions, and the difficulties of bringing this cosmic nightmare to the screen.
- Audio Commentary — Nick Maley and Michael Felsher: A dive into the practical makeup effects and the creation of the film’s memorably disgusting victims.
- Audio Commentary — Douglas Smith and Howard S. Berger: The visual-effects artist discusses the technical wizardry behind the alien spectacle.
- Cannon Fodder: The Making of Lifeforce (70 minutes): A feature-length excavation of the production’s spectacularly expensive insanity.
- Q&A with Tobe Hooper: Archival festival discussion with the filmmaker.
- Dangerous Beauty (15 minutes): Mathilda May reflects on becoming cinema’s most unforgettable naked space vampire.
- Space Vampires in London (10 minutes): Hooper discusses the film and its unusual production.
- Carlsen’s Curse (7 minutes): Steve Railsback remembers his increasingly hysterical journey through extraterrestrial hell.
- Electric Boogaloo interview outtakes (approximately 46 minutes): Additional Cannon Films madness from the documentary’s interview material.
- Isolated Music and Effects Track: Mancini’s orchestral assault and the film’s sonic destruction without dialogue.
- Stills Gallery, TV Spot, and Theatrical Trailers: Vintage advertising from an era when selling a movie about naked alien vampires was apparently a perfectly reasonable business strategy.
- 120-Page Hardcover Book: A physical treasure trove of original press materials, photographs, production information, and screenplay material.
| Movie |  |
|
| Video | |
|
| Audio |  |
|
| Extras | |
|
|
Composite Blu-ray Grade
|
||
