If you are a complete weirdo like myself, you likely find the histories and backgrounds of movie production studios interesting. They get even more interesting when bizarre personalities and failure are involved. To that end, you don’t get much more interesting than Cannon Films, the history of which is detailed in the incredibly entertaining documentary Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films. The company, founded in 1967 but more famously purchased by Israeli movie tycoons Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan in 1979, gained popularity when the 80s rolled around thanks to certain…types of films they made. Namely, Cannon was known for a few kinds of films: Ninja films, Chuck Norris films, Death Wish sequels, Dance movies, and nudity-filled exploitation films. Many of Golan and Globus’ films would be considered porn if they could be considered titillating to anyone besides themselves. The term “B-movie” tends to be thrown around a bit liberally, but most of Cannon’s catalog could certainly be categorized as such. They were cheap, quickly made, often schlocky, and existed mainly to fill space, but they occasionally had some ambition and intelligence. Few took them seriously, but when the major studios had to take time in between their own releases, Cannon was there, ready with a 90 minute also-ran to play in whatever multiplex space needed booking.
Yet, that wasn’t enough for Golan and Globus. Despite all the work they put into their studio, and the many, many films they had made, the producers and filmmakers throughout Hollywood held them in contempt. They were the poor kids in the Beverly Hills private school who had to eat alone at lunch because the glamorous popular kids wouldn’t let them sit at their table. Golbus weren’t happy with this arrangement. They believed they deserved the respect of their peers. After all, they ran a successful studio. They couldn’t figure out why their movies weren’t getting the glowing reviews, the accolades, the blockbuster box-office, or the Oscars everyone else’s movies got. Eventually, they decided it was just elitism towards the genres of film Cannon specialized in. So, they chose to change their business model. Instead of putting their money toward a bunch of small films, needing only a few to be profitable to finance more movies, they would use more money to finance a few bigger films to compete with the “bigger is better” blockbusters of the 1980s, as well as garner some critical acclaim. Cannon used to draw up cool posters for unmade movies, advertise them at whatever festivals they could get into, and quickly script and produce whichever poster got the distributors’ attention. This time, they would actually take some time with pre production to make a quality product. With this new and improved filmmaking style, people would be salivating at the mouths for their new releases! That’ll show those jerk Brothers of Warner and that dick Mount of Para!
To be fair, Cannon did have a little success with this model. Risky films like Runaway Train, the Mickey Rourke drama Barfly, and Jean-Luc Godard’s version of King Lear earned positive reviews and even some Oscar noms. The problem was that Golbus still kept up their practice of financing a crap ton of smaller movies at the same time as the bigger ones, so when those proved unsuccessful, Cannon ran increasingly short of funds until was just a shadow of its former self. And the transition between these eras on Cannon can be pinpointed to today’s entry in the Summer Blockbusters that Weren’t, Lifeforce, the crazy story of which is gone into detail at Slash Film.
Released in the Summer of 1985 with a large budget of $25 million, Lifeforce was Cannon’s one true attempt at Summer box-office gold. Based on the novel “The Space Vampires” by Colin Wilson and directed by Tobe Hooper, the director of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and (maybe?) Poltergeist, Lifeforce tells the story of a trio of alien vampires, led by a beautiful naked female vampire (French ballerina Mathilda May), who are discovered by a team of astronauts exploring Halley’s Comet. The entire crew, with the exception of Carlson (Steve Railsback), are killed somehow, and Carlson escapes after setting fire to the ship. A rescue team finds the humanoids and brings them to London, where the female escapes by seducing the men and sucking the “life force” out of a couple of them with a bizarre French Kiss. It turns out that the victims need to feed on the lives of others every two hours to survive, creating a chain reaction that threatens all life on Earth. It’s up to Carlson, who shares a psychic link to “Space Girl” (seriously, that’s the only name she gets), SAS Colonel Caine (Peter Firth), and Dr. Fallada (Frank Finlay) to find her and stop her from turning humanity into a race of life-sucking zombies.
Still with me? Normally I do more of an in-depth recap from here, but honestly? I’ve seen the movie, and it’s almost too bizarre to make sense of, so I can’t imagine having to read the entire plot. Instead, I’m going to do a more broad strokes approach. Lifeforce may have been made with the mainstream Summer movie season in mind, but it does not feel like it. Despite the budget, this is very much a B-movie, with all the silliness, violence, acting, effects, cheese, and exploitation that term implies. Evidently, Golbus thought that the only thing keeping them from the A-list of producers was budgetary constraints, rather than content. However, while Lifeforce may not technically be a good movie, it’s so batshit insane and inspired that it becomes fun.
To start with, the film makes little sense. There is an Alien-like setup with the astronauts exploring the vampire’s massive and oddly phallic ship, but not due to orders. They check it out this potentially dangerous and unexpected thing just because.The script seems to cheat with how much time has passed from here. Enough time goes by for ground control to lose contact with the shuttle, named Churchill, send up a rescue team, return to Earth with the aliens, and Space Girl to escape before Carlson’s escape pod lands (If I missed something, please tell me). Space Girl and boys are explained to be able to shapeshift, but after they supposedly pull that off, their original bodies are still around, waiting to be found at the climax. At said climax, when it becomes a British apocalyptic zombie movie, it somehow takes a brilliant feat of deduction to realize that the villain is probably at the cathedral where a giant blue beam is shooting into space. At the end, Space Girl tells Carlson that he’s “one of them.” Does she mean literally or metaphorically? Neither makes sense. Even single moments are either confusing or just strange. Of note is a news broadcast where apparently it’s news that in Latin disaster means “evil star” (it doesn’t) and Space Girl’s escape from a helicopter in the form of blood. I had to look on Wikipedia to learn exactly what happened there, but I’ve linked the scene for everyone to enjoy. Be warned, it’s NSFW.
At the center of the film is the bond between Carlson and Space Girl, the mother of toxic relationships. No matter how bad things get, or how many times others try to talk sense into him, Carlson still pines for her. The fim even ends with them in each others’ arms. There are some weird sexual themes at play here, so I’m going to do the most fun part of film blogging: Think way too hard about them. The lead villain is a young woman who spends most of her time nude, and human men are mostly helpless to her. She only escapes because the men fail to resist her, meaning all the blame goes towards the woman and the men are the victims. Carlson spends the film being strung along by his girlfriend, who gets all the blame for how unhealthy they are together, and he refuses to truly end things between them. Again, the woman is the instigator, and the man is not responsible for his actions. The only other female character of note is a psychiatric patient who spends all her screen time getting groped or beaten, with it explained that she’s a masochist who wants it(?). So in this case, a man’s power over a woman is ok, but a woman’s power over a man in evil. The director once said that the movie was about “Men dealing with the feminine mystique or the feminine terror,” but my reading was a bit more misogynistic. In this world, men are victims or saviors, women are evil or want to be dominated. Or it’s just a stupid movie, either one.
The actors, to their credit, take this silly material seriously. They all take it seriously to so many different degrees that they all seem to be in different movies. The comedy classic Airplane is well known for the genius decision to cast dramatic actors to play the material straight, which made it funny. Lifeforce is what happens when you do the same thing with material that wasn’t supposed to be funny. When the leads learn that literal space vampires are on Earth, there’s nary a moment of disbelief or questioning. Not even from Caine, who Firth plays as so stone-faced and unflappable that he comes off as stiff in some scenes, perverse in others. The man hadn’t even seen the things, and he just accepts this situation as part of his reality. Finlay’s Dr. Fallada comes off more like a quack. Instead of medical studies, he says he’s more into studying death and the afterlife. He does come up with a potentially interesting theory that these beings have visited Earth before and inspired vampire legends, but then he somehow just has an ancient weapon made of leaded iron that can kill them. He seems to be a little too interested in these beings as well. My theory is that supernatural beings were his only point of real knowledge, and he’s been waiting for this one opportunity to prove himself. As the hopelessly in love Carlson, Railsback overacts histrionically, going from angry, to scared, to confused, to horny at a moment’s notice, though it surely fits the nutty tone.
Perhaps they were all just confused because the film shifts genres several times. First, it’s a space thriller, then supernatural horror, next a detective movie, then finally a Romero zombie flick. The detective section brings in Patrick Stewart, my favorite actor, as Dr. Armstrong, a psychiatric doctor who happens to be holding Space Girl. As usual, Stewart knows just how to approach the material, going just serious enough to bring gravitas to it, but just goofy enough to keep you from laughing. He makes even an out of nowhere make-out session between him and Railsback seem believable. There are few others worth mentioning. Several characters seem like they’ll be important, then disappear without notice.
Most people who see Lifeforce tend to go into it for one reason: Mathilda May. As the Space Girl, the young dancer certainly makes an impression. The script makes it difficult to get in her head, so it’s hard to get a handle on her bond with Carlson, but she brings the character to life. She appears confident, smart, and manipulative. She has some sort of seduction power, but she also knows how to use her ethereal beauty as a weapon, even if her real form is a giant nightmare bat. Outside of Stewart, she gives the best performance in the film. Of course, not many people watch this for her acting.
The effects by John Dykstra are, well, mixed. A lot of the space shots are atmospheric and believable, and the blue beams that show up when the aliens use their powers are cool. The blood and gore effects don’t really scare or gross you out, as they ultimately look pretty fake, but the ways they are implemented are unique. As for the skeletal bodies of the victims, they never look real. It seems like something in the eyes is missing. They look like animatronics. It doesn’t help that the camera holds on them for extended periods of time. There is a goofy charm to them that you don’t get in CGI creations, however. The score seems like two scores mixed together, because that’s what it is. Henry Mancini did the main music, but Michael Kamen was brought in for additional cues. At times the score resembles a horror soundtrack, other times a fantasy adventure. Mancini’s cues are more memorable, fitting the fun, silly movie that ended up in theaters.
I’ve only scratched the surface of the insanity of Lifeforce. Other highlights include:
- A guard trying to restrain Space Girl by offering her a treat, like a dog.
- Patrick Stewart saying a child murderer has “been naughty.”
- Caine calling himself a “natural voyeur” when Carlson hits the female patient.
- This line: “I mean, 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’s totally alien to this planet and our life form… and totally dangerous.”
There’s more, but you’ll need to watch it to believe it,
And so it was the beginning of the end for The Cannon Group. They would half-ass their way through a few more attempts at mainstream success, such as Superman IV: The Quest for Peace and Masters of the Universe, but they would never again threaten to take a seat at the popular table, and they were finished by the early 90s. They left behind a legacy of dumb action flicks and exploitation films that filled video store shelves for a couple decades. Truly, it was the end of an era.
GRADE: Split B/D
Lifeforce is the perfect example of the kind of movie where your expectations determine your experience. Objectively, it’s a bad movie. It’s incomprehensible, its themes questionable, the script at times feels like it was translated directly from another language, and the acting is strange. As Cannon’s attempt to be taken seriously, it’s a complete failure. But it’s so silly and unpretentious that it’s endearing. It’s a true B-movie given a budget, and that makes it one of a kind. I watched the domestic cut released by Tri Star, but there are a couple other versions out there that are probably very different and make more sense. I went into this knowing little except it’s basic background, and I laughed at the absurdity of it all. If you have a love of cheap B-movie trash, go in with that expectation, and you’ll enjoy yourself.
