Shout! Factory / Scream Factory

[domino harvey]

Which was also released by MGM as a double feature with a similar Winter pic, Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? Seems like a bad fit with the other titles, really

[L.A.]

The Barbarians / The Norseman: Double Feature on August 27th.

[colinr0380]

I think I may have just fallen in love with Lifeforce all over again watching the new disc, and I think I have come to the conclusion that the reason why I'm not a fan of Armageddon is that I must have been unfavourably subconsciously comparing it all of this time back to this film in terms of sci-fi spectacle bang-for-your-buck lunacy!

Lifeforce is unarguably insane - a B-picture with blockbuster budget trappings. It might be disappointing that the film seems to play like four or five tonally different films bolted together, but somehow it works with the narrative shifts accompanied by their often unique barrages of imagery (love the lyrical 'walking across the fields of rural Britain' shot!) tying in well with the steadily more confused and horrified investigators trying to get their heads around the next big plot twist (so the vampires can jump from body to body now, and can partially rather than fully drain their victims if they wish?)

You get the Alien-style space exploration sequences to start the film, then move into the coolly clinical and unphased scientists in the British research lab, able to accept the presence of alien creatures when they are humanoid and beautiful and present a eerily lifelike corpse to study and dissect. Even the point at which the creatures come to life and then start draining the life out of those around them, creating new zombie-vampires seems relatively OK, as there are a set of rules that the scientists and soldiers can follow to try and contain the transmission.

Yet then with the return of Steve Railsbeck's astronaut into the film, the film begins to go steadily (and wonderfully) crazier. The disease starts spreading exponentially and unseen, psychic links are forged, events from the spaceflight get explained and then re-explained correctly in traumatised flashback form, and the nature of the horror and the way to combat it seems to change from sequence to sequence (I remember originally being a little disappointed after the magnificent middle sequence of the dessicated vampiric life-sucking corpses that in the big panic in the streets of London sequences that the filmmakers seem to have gone for a more Romero-esque zombie look that seemed to fly in the face of the creatures that we have previously seen in detail. Yet when seen as being part of the 'rules' of the universe of the film that are being broken to pieces, showing us how little we can know about the monsters, and what we have been assuming, even the 'flesh-eating' zombies work. It is likely just a way of making some sense of the more generic zombies in this sequence, but it works for me. It also helps that the film in this sequence has moved out of the vampire-zombie focus and more into the mode of wanting the audience to focus on the general mayhem in the city streets too - the scope and attention of the film has moved to something much grander whereas in the mid-point scientific study of the corpses sequences the focus is more on little groups of individuals)

It really does feel as if the film is shifting gears every twenty minutes or so into an entirely different film just with the same basic premise and characters, but that works really well. The film might be utterly crazy, but it is extremely entertainingly so!

The acting plays a big part in this too - the best comedies are played totally straight and most of the cast keep wonderfully straight faces throughout their dialogue scenes and even somehow manage to inject some believability into the proceedings! Mathilda May manages to project a heck of a lot of 'erotic power' simply through flashing her eyes at people to hypnotise them (let alone the other bits), Frank Finlay magnificently manages to play the unruffled voice of scientific reason (until the dessicated pathologist smashes himself to bits to get to them, which leads to the wonderful moment where Fallada's immaculate suit is ruined and his perfectly coiffed white hair gets ruffled into an undignified quiff! One of the first signs that things are only going to get worse!), and Peter Firth is also exceptionally good as the brilliantly business-like, terse and capable hero even in the face of all the craziness. I may be biased however as his character is called Colin! I was pleased that films, albeit belatedly, have recognised the inherent capable heroism that the name Colin conveys in such desperate situations!

This was also the first time I had seen the 'Director's Cut' version, which reinstates Henry Mancini's score front and centre at the beginning of the film and extends a lot of the early space scenes and sequences such as the one with Bukovsky (Michael Gothard, probably better known as the hippie exorcist from The Devils!) explaining the girl's 'erotic power' ("the most overpoweringly effeminate presence I have ever witnessed")

The film works a lot better in the Director's Cut version, though I was glad that the theatrical cut has been preserved for posterity on the Blu-ray, with its different (and strangely more elaborate) title card before adding an introductory text scroll (it is voiceover in the director's cut) and playing the rest of the (blood red) credits out superimposed over the opening space shots. I remember that it had seemed slightly strange when I had watched the film before that the opening titles were obscuring some of the most elaborate effects shots. You get to see the film both in that way and also 'clean' in the Director's cut version.

In terms of extra features it sounds as if it would be better waiting if you can for the Arrow set, since that will include a new documentary about the making of the film. It is also going to have an isolated score and effects track along with a third commentary with visual effects technician Douglas Smith (that commentary sounds as if it will be particularly interesting as some of the best parts of the film involve the streaming 'lifeforce' gasses surrounding the characters, including penetrating them in the final scene). However it looks as if only the Shout! Factory release is going to feature the 20 minutes vintage making of documentary, so I'm not too bothered about having this one too!

While I found the Tobe Hooper commentary to be a little subdued, I have to put in a word for the excellent commentary with Nick Maley, the make up artist who created a lot of the zombies and vampires for the film. That whole track is an absolute gold mine of information about Maley's whole career (including working on the Star Wars films, Krull and Highlander).

One of the things that I was thinking of mentioning here is that Maley talks about going on from Lifeforce to do the notoriously aborted version of Grizzly II. That film is now most famous for featuring Charlie Sheen, Laura Dern and George Clooney in a couple of scenes as three unlikely camping companions! (Laura Dern was probably the most famous at that point, just having come off Blue Velvet!) Don't get too excited about their presence though, as they appear to mostly just be used as the expendable teen victims of the grizzly bear, and most of their scenes take place in pitch blackness!

Anyway Maley talks on the commentary of Grizzly II suddenly being abandoned just at the point that the model shots were going to be created. Now, I probably shouldn't link to this (the video had to be taken down from YouTube but inevitably once something is made available online once, it keeps popping back up again!) but there is a 'Cinema Snob' video kicking around that tackles this film and shows that most of the film was edited up until the end point when the footage degenerates into rushes. It really helps to put Maley's points into context!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

You call it a B-picture so I wonder if the combination of the acting and the story shifting gears makes this more amusing as a film or just simply terrifying. Reviews that I've read lead me to think it's the former, but is this a compelling, scary horror film? Or just buckets of inspired madness held together by the actors and script? I've been meaning to see the film in this new release, but after all these years of it building in my mind as a truly creepy movie I wonder how it really plays out. A film with Firth and Railsbeck is meant to be a little campy, right?

[domino harvey]

I've been saving my comments for my next update in the Horror Thread, but I saw the director's cut of Lifeforce a few weeks ago and was shocked at how much I enjoyed it. I think despite its camp reputation and the very notion of its premise, the film plays it straight-- or at least as straight as a naked space vampire movie can be played. As Colin mentions, the big budget gives it a sheen films of this nature don't normally receive, and the film's eventual ambition is on the more epic scale. I wouldn't go so far as to call is a creepy or scary film, but it is an effective one!

[colinr0380]

Well considering the dessicated body raising itself up from the slab terrified me from the age of 9 until, oh, about a week or so ago when I watched it again (I've finally made my peace with the lab zombies through seeing the film again, but they are still very impressive pieces of animatronics), it certainly made a scary impression on me! Bear in mind though that as a kid I also had to hide behind my chair during the explosive climax of The Fury!

The premise is audaciously over the top (a B-picture in the best possible way, with all of the inventiveness that implies), so it does work as entertaining and amusing (in the way that I don't think quite works in Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2), yet it is also straight faced enough to build up to some excellently creepy, totally left field moments (the bloody helicopter scene for instance). It really is a huge budget Quatermass film, albeit without the capable unflappable figure of Professor Quatermass to act as an anchor (All of the authority figures get undermined in this film. Undermined by unrestrained and unleashed libidos!), so as much sci-fi as monster horror and scary on those terms. In a way the ravaging of London by streams of energy buffeting people around at the climax is a great tribute to the finale of Quatermass and the Pit, again a tale of ancient evil unwittingly unleashed onto modern day times.

One of the other great aspects of the film is the great uses of overlapping, dreamy dissolves for the flashbacks or the mind-control scenes. It is a shame that lapse dissolves and fades seem to have fallen out of favour in recent times, as they add a lot to the creepy, fuzzy, indefinable evil atmosphere of this film.

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

The lab zombies showed up in a horror film documentary I saw as a youngster - it scared me to death and I left the room soon afterwards - so I asked because I was in the same position! Then a few months ago, a fan of the movie posted stills on Tumblr and the atmosphere of the lighting and the set design creeped me out again. Considering the dark levels and claustrophobic elevators of the old library where I worked at the time, I was looking over my shoulder for a week. Thanks for expanding on your comments on the film. Your comparison to Quatermass helps in that regard. Also, I watched The Legend of Hell House a few weeks ago so it'll be nice to watch another movie shot by Alan Hume.

[colinr0380]

Now that arguably the best known Mathilda May film is available, something that I would really like to see an enterprising label rescue would be the very underrated Leonard Schrader film (the only film he directed) Naked Tango, in which May becomes the key figure of a 1920s Argentinian-set love triangle, torn between her old life as a trophy wife to an elderly sugar daddy played by Fernando Rey and a new identity working in a brothel visited by the brutish but virile gangster with a taste for tango music, played by Vincent D'Onofrio! Needless to say, it doesn't end well for anyone!

[solaris72]

Lifeforce features a Dan O'Bannon screenwriting staple- a scene wherein the heroes snatch an antagonist, put them on a gurney and interrogate them.

See this trope in other Dan O'Bannon scripts such as Alien and Return of the Living Dead.

[JamesF]

See this trope in other Dan O'Bannon scripts such as Alien and Return of the Living Dead.

Worth noting though that the Ash scenes (as well as the idea that 'the Company' wanted the alien brought back alive) in Alien were all written by David Giler & Walter Hill. (O'Bannon was infamously snippy about the need to add a "corporate malfeasance" subplot into the script.) Still, well spotted, and the ROTLD script was probably written around the same time as Lifeforce.

[colinr0380]

One of the interesting things noted in the Tobe Hooper commentary is that it seems that Hooper was originally slated to direct Return of the Living Dead but recommended Dan O'Bannon instead for the directorial role on that film, with O'Bannon working on Lifeforce in return.

EDIT: By the way here's an interesting BBC documentary about comets, that makes a nice companion piece to Lifeforce!

[Jean-Luc Garbo]

Lifeforce features a Dan O'Bannon screenwriting staple- a scene wherein the heroes snatch an antagonist, put them on a gurney and interrogate them.

Wow, that was ridiculous. I think I'm ready for the movie now.

[dwk]

**BREAKING: FINAL list of extras for our upcoming THE AMITYVILLE HORROR TRILOGY!**

THE AMITYVILLE HORROR
- New interview - Haunted Melodies with Composer Lalo Schifrin
- "For God's Sake, Get Out!" Documentary with actors James Brolin and Margot Kidder
- Audio Commentary by Dr. Hans Holzer, PH.D. in Parapsychology (author of Murder in Amityville)
- Original Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spot
- Radio Spots

AMITYVILLE II: THE POSSESSION
- The Posession of Damiani - Interview with Director Damiano Damiani
- Adapting Amityville – New Interview with Screenwriter Tommy Lee Wallace
- Family Matters – New Interview with Actress Diane Franklin
- A Mother’s Burden – New Interview with Actress Rutanya Alda
- Father Tom’s Memories – New Interview with Actor Andrew Prine
- New Interview with ghost hunter/author Alexandra Holzer (Growing up Haunted: A Ghostly Memoir)
- New Audio Commentary with ghost hunter/author Alexandra Holzer
- Original Theatrical Trailer

AMITYVILLE 3D
- 2D and Blu-ray 3D presentation of the film for the first time!
- A Chilly Reception – New Interview with Actress Candy Clark
- Original Theatrical Trailer

Pre-order now for a 10/1 release at https://www.shoutfactory.com/node/218255" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; to get a limited edition poster!

[rspaight]

A Ph.D. in parapsychology? Like the guys in Ghostbusters?

[domino harvey]

And now for something completely different: Sophie's Choice Blu on Nov 19

[Jeff]

And now for something completely different: Sophie's Choice Blu on Nov 19

Shout has got the other thirtysomething films the ITV library too, so you can expect releases of On Golden Pond, The Eagle Has Landed, The Last Unicorn, The Tamarind Seed, Capricorn One, The Cassandra Crossing, the remake of Brief Encounter, Saturn 3, Voyage of the Damned, and The Boys from Brazil.

[domino harvey]

Can't wait for that 2.0 mix of Henry Fonda hollering "Shit" in his old coot voice

[captveg]

Can't wait for that 2.0 mix of Henry Fonda hollering "Shit" in his old coot voice

2.0 Lossless or bust

[domino harvey]

November 19

[dwk]

updates from Scream Factory's facebook page:

- Final extras for THE VINCENT PRICE COLLECTION (10/22) and JOHN CARPENTER'S BODY BAGS (11/12) will be announced by end of Aug. NIGHT OF THE COMET's will be early Sept.

- Update on THE VINCENT PRICE COLLECTION: We had originally intended to include the U.S. version of WITCHFINDER GENERAL known as CONQUEROR WORM, but due to some unforeseen legal issues, we were told we would need to remove a scene from the film. Sine we felt the fans would have been unhappy that a scene was cut from the film, so we decided to drop the U.S. version of the film instead of editing the film. Sorry guys, we tried.

- We can confirm upcoming Dec street dates for the following titles: SATURN 3 (12/3), TV TERRORS (12/10), THE BEAST WITHIN (12/17), CRAWLSPACE (12/17). Pre-order links will appear early next month.

- We are thisclose to closing two deals that will bring three popular 80s horror favorites to Blu-ray for the first time. As soon as we can get the official "OK" to share, we will let you know what they are.

[swo17]

So does that mean no Witchfinder General at all, or only one cut instead of two?

[jojo]

Slightly adding to some of the Tobe Hooper talk in here, I picked up The Funhouse blu-ray and I was taken by Hooper's great use of the Panavision widescreen ratio--not dissimilar in style to the widescreen compositions displayed in Poltergeist, which as most here know is notorious for being known as the film Spielberg "ghost-directed" (if you'll excuse the pun). If anything, The Funhouse does give *some* credence to the argument that Hooper wasn't completely pushed aside by Spielberg and did, in fact, impose more of his "style" on Poltergeist than some reports have led people to believe. Of course, Spielberg's films also display great understanding of widescreen composition, but I feel like he uses the frame a little differently in most of his films than is displayed in Poltergeist.

I haven't looked at Lifeforce yet but I'm really interested in taking a look at that as another source for comparison.

[knives]

So does that mean no Witchfinder General at all, or only one cut instead of two?

Just the cut that was previously released on DVD.

[dwk]

They only dropped the US cut of Witchfinder General. I'm curious to know what the scene was that they would've had to cut.

[Feego]

So does that mean no Witchfinder General at all, or only one cut instead of two?

Just the cut that was previously released on DVD.

Actually, the cut previously released on DVD was the longer British version, Witchfinder General, the same one that WILL be in Shout Factory's set. The U.S. version, The Conqueror Worm, has never been released on digital format (at least not in the U.S.).