I don't know what to say about this movie. Is it a horror film? Is it a science-fiction film? Is it a suspenseful character study? Is it a floor wax? Okay, it definitely is not the last one. This film is definitely a product of its times and is very unique. What other film has naked Space Vampires? If you can name another film...I really need to see it. In the meantime, here is this...
The film begins in outer space, leading us towards the sci-fi conclusion. A group of astronauts are on a mission when Haley's Comet flies by. They detect something in its tail and, naturally, go to investigate it. A trio of them float onto the giant freaky ship, but don't suspect anything. They discover a trio of naked people (one of them female) in tubes. This gives us the first disparagement of the film: the lady is shown in full-frame, but the men are covered. Not that I want to see that or anything, but it still feels weird. Some freaky stuff happens and all communication is lost.
After a bit of chaos, the pod from the spaceship crashes in the ocean, leaving only one living man. The rest of the bodies, save for the trio of naked people, are gone. The government has a lot of questions, but the astronaut has few answers. I thought we already knew that we could not trust astronauts! Shortly thereafter, the woman awakens and escapes the building, leaving some plastic bodies in her wake. This happens a lot & we quickly learn that the mysterious beings suck the life energy out of people. Life energy- if only I had a better way to say that. The men awaken as well, but prove to be 'killable' with enough bullets (roughly 1,000). Movie over?
No, it seems that the woman is hard to track down. I repeat- the naked space vampire lady is hard to track down. She proves to be more powerful than the men and able to transfer her consciousness into other people. Only one man can find her: crazy Astronaut man! He has some weird psychic connection to her, due to their previous interaction, and can feel her. I guess he's part Highlander. They track her down to a psychiatric facility run by Captain Picard and think that she is in a fat guy. Astronaut Jones sees through this facade and takes 'Picard' with them. Unfortunately, he explodes in a giant splash of blood. No, really.
The whole thing builds to a really strange climax. Naked space vampire lady causes lots of lights to flash in the skies around London. Our hero/crazy man tracks her down and, um, tries to negotiate. Yeah, it's sex. A lot of blue lights go off and, um, something happens. They never really bother to explain what. We know that both people are gone and the threat is over. Um yea? The End.
This movie is definitely a guilty pleasure. You get flash effects, exploding corpses and a naked lady. Did I mention her yet? Okay, good. Oddly, this film is directed by Tobe Hooper, the man behind The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Body Bags. Even if you view him as the guy who made Poltergeist, this still seems weird. Maybe the similarity between just how many blue lights and smoke he creates is all we can hope for. If you can accept all the silly effects and nudity, you just might have a good time.
Let's keep the vampire theme going with...a woman lusting after a pre-teen? Stay tuned...
I have to rewatch this one soon, its definitely in a class all to itself! I didnt overly enjoy it the first time (saw the extended International version), but it came really close to being awesome before it didnt
ReplyDeleteGood review, but you forgot to mention all the mayhem caused over the streets of London because when the girl sucks life from her victims, they become zombie life-suckers! In fact that's the principal reason to chase her (except she's an alien and blahblahblah...).
ReplyDeleteAnd I think that the ending is in fact very self-explanatory (SPOILER ALERT!!!). The girl is the alien version of Dracula, so she has to be killed with some sort os special weapon, in this case a weird sword (with more handle than blade). The astronaut is aware of this and he manage to kill her, but he is love with her so if she dies he has to die too. Once the last alien is gone, the mayhem stops. C'mon, it's so 80's!!!