The Space Vampires

Yes, it is an unfortunate title, but that essentially how the book starts out.

I read this book years, years ago. Colin Wilson was one of those seminal sci-fiction writers that had a big effect on me as young man. I’m primarily reading it now because I was cleaning under the bed and found a 1977 Pocket Book edition. I reread it years ago because of the movie version, “LifeForce,” a cult classic, due in part I’m sure because of the full-frontal nude shots of the beautiful space vampire. But if you’re looking for a movie faithful to Collin’s book, you’ll be rather disappointed.

That unfaithfulness aside,,the movie was good for what it was intended to be, a good British Sci-fi B-movie, a genre which I contend no one can do quite as well as the Brits. (And the human victims of the Space Vampires turn into soul sucking (not brain sucking) zombies. What more could you want from a movie: beautiful breasts, occult themes, and soul-sucking zombies.

Here’s the trailer:

And here’s an excerpt with the best line of the movie. (”I’ve been in space six months, and she looks perfect to me.”) Note the expression on the female astronaut’s face when her male astronaut colleague utters these words. Perfect!

Back to the book, whose premise is that we are all energy vampires to some degree. Still, the opening of the book and the movie are about the same: A huge, miles-long spaceship is found in space, apparently millennium old, but with perfectly preserved humans in crystal caskets. The Earth space ship bring the preserved humans back to Earth where all hell breaks loose as a vampire plague is released.

After that, the book and the movie diverge. More on this divergence later, but the book has a long occult middle. Collin’s space vampires don’t want to attract too much attention. Their plans for conquering Earth are more like that of a banker. They corrupt powerful people, and run things through them. At least that’s how it looks about 3/4 way through the book. In the movie, the space vampires get right down to business. In about 24 hours, London is a vampire zombie war zone.

More later.