Tag Archives: Patrick Stewart

Lifeforce (1985) | Tobe Hooper



In Cannon Films’ Lifeforce, we find a space shuttle mission co-funded by American and British space agencies traveling to explore Halley’s Comet up close. They soon make a discovery of an alien ship hiding in the comet’s coma, so they go on board to investigate, only to find desiccated bat-like creatures and three naked humanoid beings, a woman and two men, seemingly in a perpetual state of sleep in their individual glass sarcophagus-like pods. They bring the pods aboard to bring to study, but things go awry in ways that we don’t quite learn about until the pods are brought down to the European Space Research Centre in London. The shuttle mission’s sole human survivor, Colonel Tom Carlsen (Steve Railsback) also makes his way to Earth to spin a crazy tale, and to help with the mission to track down the space vampires trying to make their escape and wreak havoc on an unsuspecting planet. Tobe Hooper directs this big-budget oddity from 1985.


Excalibur (1981) | John Boorman



John Boorman’s polarizing but highly ambitious take on Arthurian legend is a visually and aurally striking look into the myth, the fantasy, and the haunting imagery that the medieval Thomas Malory tale has evoked over the last several centuries.  A then-nobody, but now all-star cast that includes Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and Patrick Stewart appears alongside stars Nigel Terry and Nicol Williamson to spin this sword-and-sorcery take on this well-known tale unlike any other that has seemingly come before or since.