Ringleader Studios (“The Amityville Horror: The Lost Tapes”) is developing a series remake of Tobe Hooper’s 1985 Steve Railsback-Patrick Stewart sci-fi thriller “Lifeforce.”
To do so, the company has acquired screen rights to the 1976 Colin Wilson novel “The Space Vampires,” on which “Lifeforce” was based.
No channel is yet attached to the project.
The book deals with astronauts who discover hot, naked vitality-suckers lodged in Hailey’s Comet -- and foolishly decide to bring them back home to Earth.
Though the movie has acquired a cult following since its release, Variety was not impressed:
Pic [from the novel The Space Vampires by Colin Wilson] descends into subpar Agatha Christie territory.
The New York Times review by Janet Maslin panned it as well:
ABOUT 30 seconds into Tobe Hooper's ''Lifeforce,'' two things become clear: that this film is going to make no sense, and that Mr. Hooper's directorial work on ''Poltergeist'' may indeed have been heavily influenced by Steven Spielberg, who wrote and co-produced that film. ''Lifeforce'' shows off Mr. Hooper's way with a whirling mass of protoplasm, just as ''Poltergeist'' did. But its style is shrill and fragmented enough to turn ''Lifeforce'' into hysterical vampire porn.
Leonard Maltin only gave it a “5” out of 10. Stick around and learn that Entertianment Tonight’s Movietrack survey of filmgoers earned it a score of D+:
Mr. Skin, however, lauds the movie’s “Hall of Fame Nudity”:
How bad can an alien invasion be when the leader is mega-meloned Mathilda May? She flaunts her unearthly bod by walking nude throughout the sci-fi epic Lifeforce (1985), and it’s surprising that anybody even notices that London is being overrun by shriveled zombies.
Hopefully, if the project goes to series, it will land on a channel friendly to such extreme nakedocity.
Find all of Deadline’s exclusive on the matter here.
