The Watching Hour is a weekly film series at the Starz Film Center, highlighting new and old cult, genre, or otherwise bizarro movies. Quite simply, The Watching Hour is usually the best thing to do in Denver on a Friday or Saturday night. From Giallo to schlock, Blaxploitation to Aussiesploitation, zombies to martial arts to who-knows-what, and everywhere in between. This is good ol’ rock and roll cinema spectacle. Not to be missed. (See the schedule, buy tickets, get directions, etc. here.)
What do Alien, Star Wars, Total Recall, Heavy Metal, The Return of the Living Dead, Dead and Buried, and Dark Star, all have in common?
This guy:
No, it’s not Orville Redenbacher. It’s Dan O’Bannon, screenwriter extraordinaire and all around movie handyman. He was on the computer team that made the Death Star plans! He was the dude who wrote the original Alien concept, back when it was called Star Beast! Okay, don’t hold that against him.
Instead, go see Lifeforce at the Watching Hour in celebration and memoriam of the life of Dan O’Bannon, who passed in December at the age of 63 after a 30-year battle with Crohn’s disease. This is O’Bannon’s team up with ultra-legendary (to me an approximately 137 others) director Tobe Hooper of Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Poltergeist fame. Texas freaking Chainsaw Massacre! And this one has nudie space vampire vixens! And zombies. I don’t think the zombies are naked, but I could be wrong.
O’Bannon’s original title for Lifeforce was Space Vampires. He really had a knack for titles. It’s a wonder Total Recall wasn’t called Solar Hero.
All kidding aside, this screening of Lifeforce is “The Movie Advocate’s Watching Hour PICK OF THE MONTH!” Quite a mouthful, eh? This will be a great time. Seriously, don’t miss it.
I’m not joking.