Movies
Celebrate Tobe Hooper’s Birthday by Watching His Most Underrated Horror Classic
Were he still alive, it would have been Tobe Hooper’s 81st birthday today, and I’d like to take time on this birthday to shine a light on one of Hooper’s cult classics to celebrate that occasion. Most horror movie lovers will carry with them vivid memories of seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Poltergeist for the first time, but it’s Hooper’s most underrated classic you should be checking out and making some new memories with today: Lifeforce.
Filmmaking without limits sounds like a pipedream for many. It’s lofty, it’s incredibly expensive, and it feels borderline impossible without the world’s most massive windfall of good luck. But one of horror’s favorite directors, Tobe Hooper, got a chance to do just that back in 1985. And he did it with a film that most people outside of the horror sphere have forgotten.
Were he still alive, it would have been Tobe Hooper’s 81st birthday today, and I’d like to take time on this birthday to shine a light on one of Hooper’s cult classics to celebrate that occasion. Most horror movie lovers will carry with them vivid memories of seeing Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Poltergeist for the first time, but it’s Hooper’s most underrated classic you should be checking out and making some new memories with today: Lifeforce.
While the British-American space shuttle called the Churchill approaches Halley’s comet to study it, it ends up running afoul of a bizarre construct: a hundred and fifty-mile long spire, made out of an unidentifiable organic material. What the crew finds inside is the corpse of a massive, strange bat creature, and three crystal coffins, one containing an enchantingly beautiful woman. And what the Churchill brings back to Earth kickstarts a vampiric alien invasion, and puts not just the lives of the astronauts at risk—it’s the lifeforce of the entire world in the balance.
For the moviegoers of 1985, the film Lifeforce was just another odd b-movie filled with weird visual effects and a pale, nude French woman walking around and sucking out people’s souls. Like most weird science fiction, the initial test audiences didn’t get it, and when it went to theatres public audiences and critics REALLY didn’t get it (outside of star Mathilda May’s sex appeal, which everyone gets). But Lifeforce isn’t just a misunderstood sci-fi horror movie about energy vampires; it’s a testament to Hooper’s creative spirit more than any of his other works. And that’s partly to do with the studio that produced it, who gave Hooper free reign over the set.
I sometimes wonder if we’ll ever get another movie studio like Cannon, mainly because The Cannon Group was the closest thing to a “free-spirited” film company I’ve ever seen. Under the control of partners Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, the studio was notorious for not only their prolific output and the number of productions it had running simultaneously, but also for their hands-off approach to producing these movies. They largely left their directors to make whatever they wanted and picked up the finished product when it was ready to distribute. So, when Hooper was approached to direct a science fiction film after many years of working on horror movies like The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Return of the Living Dead, he took the opportunity. What he got was a lofty and loose script, an adaptation of the British sci-fi novel The Space Vampires, a title which was quickly reworked into Lifeforce.
What he made was completely unexpected.
A madcap production ensued that really sculpted a legendary image of the director among the cast and crew. Those who worked on the set of Lifeforce described the energy Hooper brought to the set as something like “a demonic dwarf” scurrying around and “sprinkling gunpowder on everything”. According to them, he was a man filled with energy, running about with a cigar in one hand and a Dr. Pepper in the other. Watching Lifeforce now, that energy definitely shows; it feels a lot less like a director getting a simple blank check, and more like an artist getting the funds and manpower of a small nation to do a classic 60’s science fiction film; Hooper cited Quatermass and The Pit as major inspirations for the style and tone of Lifeforce.
He lovingly smithed the movie, piece by piece until it was exactly what he wanted, and each piece that was forged together seemed more complicated than the last. Lifeforce’s early sequences in space are a bombshell launched by an art department of a different caliber; the kind of talent that could make unbelievably realistic matte paintings of the vampire’s ship exteriors, and also carve a soundstage of the same quality out of real-life materials to represent its guts. On Earth, the miniatures are just as grand, giving us a bird’s eye view of London in chaos as explosions and rioting rock the city; this all culminates at the final showdown, running through the flaming streets of London to St. Paul’s Cathedral, a set that could fool anyone into thinking it’s the real thing. Everything is ablaze, a perfect reflection of the atmosphere that Hooper has conducted, a symphony of kinetic energy and Lovecraftian madness.
And on the ground, up close, a team of makeup artists led by ILM champion and Academy Award winner John Dykstra brought to life the film’s various fiends: incredible instantly decaying energy zombies, people exploding into dust, giant alien bat creatures, and ethereal flying light effects painstakingly etched into the film frame by frame (not including the massive, actual 10,000-lumen bulb they had flying through the set on a wire).
Hundreds of extras moving in concert, pyrotechnics exploding on a macro and miniature scale, controlled burns and swarms of people all inside of Hooper’s sweeping and apocalyptic camera work. It is an incredible and grandiose finale that serves as a crescendo to the film’s narrative, one that makes a sci-fi of planetary proportions really feel that massive. It just all comes together to feel so much bigger than the sum of its parts.
Lifeforce is a tribute to Tobe Hooper’s boldness as a filmmaker, and his love of the craft; it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to create, as he described it in the documentary Cannon Fodder, anything he wanted to make. He seized that chance and used it to its fullest, and what resulted is a love letter to the art of making movies with no boundaries and no restrictions. And on his birthday, I can’t think of a better way to honor his work than to see what he could do when the gloves were off, and he could hit you with some serious bare-knuckle cinematography.
Best of all you can find the movie free to stream on Tubi, so you have even less of an excuse to not check it out now. So as always, happy watching horror fans!
I don’t know about you, but it feels like I stepped out of the theater after seeing Wolf Man, blinked, and suddenly it was September. It’s been a very busy year in general, but as always, especially so for the horror genre. We’ve had some misses and some hits, but overall, I’d say it’s been a strong year (though maybe not quite as strong as 2024 and its deluge of incredible movies).
Though your mind might still be primarily occupied with a more recent release, there have been a lot of incredible movies to hit both theaters and especially streaming services like Shudder in 2025. So, we here at Horror Press have decided to put together a shortlist of the best horror the year has had to offer so far.
The Best Horror of 2025 So Far
Feel free to wave this list in the face of your friends who say that all the horror they’ve watched this year is bad. Or just to celebrate because your favorite made the cut! Without further ado, let’s start with…
Dangerous Animals
Fun and insane animal horror movies are so hard to come across these days, but Dangerous Animals chums the waters with some fresh meat for the subgenre. Sean Byrne, best known for his work on the Australian sleeper hit The Loved Ones, tells a story reminiscent of Wolf Creek on the high seas.
A surfer and her boyfriend fall prey to a boat captain who promises a thrilling cage diving experience, but with a catch: he secretly enjoys torturing people before feeding them to sharks. Jai Courtney shines as the antagonist Tucker, whose mealy-mouthed grins and demented demeanor sell the danger our leads are in.
Clown in a Cornfield
The pick for the best slasher offering this year (until Black Phone 2 releases, #JoeHillHypeTrain) is a no-brainer. Shudder has finally delivered the long-awaited adaptation of Adam Cesare’s Clown In A Cornfield. And helmed by Eli Craig of Tucker & Dale vs. Evil fame no less! In the now dead hamlet of Kettle Springs, Missouri, a group of teens run afoul of its former mascot Frendo. While it initially presents itself as a basic corn-fed killer clown movie, if you stick with it, you’ll find it’s actually much more clever and thrilling than it lets on.
Predator: Killer of Killers
When I say Dan Trachtenberg does not miss, he does not miss in the slightest. The current creative director of the Predator franchise, fans of the series have been eating good ever since his work on 2022’s Prey, and have Predator: Badlands to look forward to early next month.
While Predator: Killer of Killers could have easily been a cheap animated film to tide over fans while they wait for Badlands, it proved to be one of the best films in the franchise yet. An anthology film featuring Yautja hunting throughout human history and across cultures, the animation here is slicker than slick. Killer of Killers delivers the action horror that everyone has been asking for from the franchise for years.
The Ugly Stepsister
When I heard The Ugly Stepsister was a collaboration between a bevy of film institutes and production companies across four different Nordic countries, I wondered what made it so special. What I saw explained it. While it is technically Cinderella, it’s specifically a retelling of Aschenputtel, one of the original and much darker iterations of Cinderella collected by the Brothers Grimm. And dark this is.
Told from the perspective of Cinderella’s stepsister Elvira, we watch her spiral as she tries to beautify herself in the ugliest of ways, all in an effort to secure a wealthy male suitor. Truly inspired costuming, grotesque body horror played for both shock and laughs, and a dead-on sense of comedic timing make this one a very memorable watch.
Weapons
Director Zach Cregger’s sophomore outing in the horror genre following his smash hit Barbarian is well-loved, and for good reason. This time, Weapons shines a spotlight on lives in a small town, and how they intersect, trying to make sense of a horrifying incident: the disappearance of 17 children who run out the front doors of their homes in the dead of night.
Cregger dances deftly on the line between horror and comedy in a way I can only describe as masterful, creating a film that is both viciously funny and aggressively disturbing. Where the film goes is a curveball, even for those who have seen the trailers, and a delightful one at that, since Weapons brings a new horror icon to the stage.
Companion
And speaking of Zach Cregger, this sci-fi horror is another one of his productions. If you’ve somehow avoided seeing anything about Companion until now and don’t know what it’s about, keep it that way and go watch it immediately. The ad campaign spoiled it, but the story is undeniably enthralling even if you know where it’s going. This movie features what is, by far, Sophie Thatcher’s most dynamic performance yet, supported by a stellar cast and the film’s pitch-black humor.
Fréwaka
The first Irish-language horror film is also one of the nation’s best cinematic offerings yet. A gripping and immersive folk horror film, it follows a home nurse named Shoo assigned to a superstitious older woman named Peig who lives on the edge of a remote village. Shoo soon begins to see dark ongoings in her dreams and waking life, plagued by the same mysterious group that Peig has been dealing with her entire life.
Fréwaka is a precision-made film, chock full of high impact editing and cinematography. It evokes a kind of existential monster, both man-made horrors of human cruelty and the mythological ones that lie deep in belief and the dark corners of Irish folklore. In short, unsettlingly effective.
Ash
Flying Lotus’ directorial career has been a point of interest for me ever since the genre shapeshifter that was Kuso and the demented parody that was his segment “Ozzy’s Dungeon” in V/H/S/99. And even with the high hopes those ventures gave me, Ash is so much more than I could have expected.
After astronaut Riya wakes up to nightmares of bodies being melted and screams of agony, she finds herself as one of only two survivors in a mission to colonize a planet gone horribly wrong. Ash is a lovely middle point between Event Horizon and The Void, a mixture that is sure to please those of us who like our science fiction dripping with an evil atmosphere and dark visuals. It also boasts some of the best color grading and lighting in any film this year.
Sinners
If you haven’t seen Sinners already, what have you been up to? Brain science? Rocket surgery? Here, visionary director Ryan Coogler tells the tale of a repressed young black man in 1930s Mississippi, trying to break away from his preacher father’s restrictive ways. His journey to do so lands him a performance at a juke joint out in the woods, one he plays so well that it lures in an ageless and relentless vampire.
Michael B. Jordan, Jack O’Connell, and Wunmi Mosaku lead an all-star cast through a mystical horror story with purpose. It explores the meaning of culture, religion, music, and the Black American experience—all while delivering one of the best vampire films of all time. The showstopping original soundtrack by Ludwig and Serena Göransson that it boasts isn’t half bad either.
Bring Her Back
I won’t mark this with the caveat of “so far”—this will be the most disturbing film you see this year. Bring Her Back blew any expectations you might have had from the Phillipou Brothers’ Talk To Me out of the water. While the premise of an orphaned brother and sister who are sent to live with an off-kilter foster mother and another mute child she’s fostering might seem predictable, this film is anything but.
It’s truly an emotionally draining watch, blow after blow with both the physical and emotional trauma it puts its characters through, and forces you to watch. It refuses to let you breathe for even a minute in its final act. It’s definitively Sally Hawkin’s finest hour as an actress, and beyond this short list, it’s firmly some of the best horror of all time.
2024 was pretty damn swamped with horror. Longlegs, Heretic, Nosferatu, I Saw the TV Glow…even over halfway into 2025, fans are still catching up on every horror flick they might have missed last year. Early on, though, we were given one of the best horror-rom-coms of the 21st century…and no one seemed to really care. Did people stop liking fun? It seems to be the only explanation for why this movie did not catch on more. Directed by Zelda Williams and written by the legendary Diablo Cody, Lisa Frankenstein was designed to be a cult classic, and should be remembered as one.
A Vibrant 80s Aesthetic That Screams Originality
One thing to note about this movie right off the bat is how unapologetically itself it is. The film is an absolute vibe, boasting an original aesthetic. There is so much 1980s nostalgia saturating the mainstream (cough, cough, Stranger Things), so it could be hard to imagine why we need another tongue-in-cheek horror-comedy set in the era. Lisa Frankenstein takes a completely original approach to the 80s. Its fashion and music concern themselves with the alternative, new wave-ish, goth-y side of the decade. It does not glorify what was big and popular, but rather picks it apart in ridiculously kitschy designs.
The film feels like a mix of Tim Burton’s brightest, suburban aesthetics, mixed with the grittier side of 80s culture and music. It is a bit of a, dare I say it, Frankenstein’s monster of a wavelength. With such striking originality, it’s hard to say why exactly the film did not find its way into viewers’ hearts.
The Bride of (Lisa) Frankenstein
The leads in the film are both phenomenal. Kathryn Newton is funny and full of life as the protagonist, who feels like a more light-hearted version of Wednesday Addams. Cole Spruce is phenomenal as the creature, playing an old-school, lovable monster. They truly play the movie as equal parts Edward Scissorhands and Juno. Speaking of…
Diablo Cody’s Cinematic Universe: A Horror-Comedy Legacy
What really puts this film on the next level is its writing. The film is written by the legendary Diablo Cody, creator of classics such as Jennifer’s Body and Juno. The film continues her legacy of teen-centric stories, combining drama, comedy, and, more often than not, bloody horror. Her originality shines through in this film without a doubt, with the humor evoking a distinctly mid-2000s indie flick feel.
Additionally, in an interview with Deadline, Diablo Cody said, “…this movie [Lisa Frankenstein] takes place in the same Universe [Jennifer’s Body]. Jennifer’s Body is of course revered as a classic horror-comedy, blending brutal supernatural lore with a ton of humor. That movie has a much higher fan base than Lisa Frankenstein, however, Cody has confirmed that these films share the same Universe. This alone should give fans of the genre another chance to consider this movie. Plus, with news of a potential Jennifer’s Body 2, Lisa Frankenstein could potentially be part of what one day may be an iconic trilogy.
A Deeper Love Letter to Art and Creation
For all the pomp and frills of teen dramedy, romcom-ishness (new word!) and bloody horror, Lisa Frankenstein has some more to say than what meets the eye. The movie is not just a romance between Lisa and The Creature. It is a romance between Lisa and art itself.
Lisa’s character is an artist from the beginning, sewing and designing her own art and fashions, fascinated by the art surrounding her. She has a passion for art and art history, and desires to create. In a sense, through her sewing and construction, The Creature is an art piece. The movie is literally a romance between her and the act of human creation.
In one of the movie’s best sequences, Lisa has a dream sequence in which she is married to the bust of The Creature, and the room is decorated like George Méliès’ A Trip to the Moon. This iconic short film from the turn of the 20th century remains one of the most impactful and inspirational films ever made, helping to pioneer narrative storytelling in film. By referencing and paying homage to this movie, Lisa Frankenstein draws a throughline between Lisa’s creation and the creation of art as a whole. This is a movie that understands its place in film history and appreciates the importance of creation on both a Divine and human creative level.
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