Leviathan & Burnt Offering & Lifeforce

Leviathan & Burnt Offering & Lifeforce     ASIN B000E3BARU     Medium Count 1     Medium DVD     Publisher Tgg Direct     UPC 18459675     DVD Region 1     Studio DVD     Audience Rating R (Restricted)     Publication Date 5/7/2010     Original Title Leviathan; Burnt Offering; Lifeforce     Platform Set Includes: / Leviathan / Lifeforce / Burnt Offerings     Date Imported 2/12/2011     List Price $6.95     Rating 4.04.04.04.04.0     Subjects SpookySeason     Genre Science Fiction / Horror     Copy Count 1     Location SpookySeason     Tag Hollywood     IMDb Rating 0      

Synopsis

Includes:
  • Burnt Offerings (1976), MPAA Rating: R
  • Lifeforce (1985), MPAA Rating: R
  • Leviathan (1989), MPAA Rating: R

    Burnt Offerings
    Dan Curtis, director of TV's Dark Shadows series, directed this eerie haunted-house thriller about a house which draws energy from its inhabitants and selects its own "keeper" from the family of Ben and Marian Rolf (Oliver Reed & Karen Black), who rent the strangely-affordable house one fateful summer then find themselves slowly succumbing to its creepy powers. The photography is suitably moody, and many of the standard haunted-house cliches are used to decent effect -- particularly a violent scene in which the surrounding woods form a barrier to prevent the family station wagon from escaping the area -- but the pace is too leisurely overall, climaxing with the type of grim ending employed by nearly every mainstream horror film in the late 70's. Black's spooky looks are used to maximum effect, but are never quite as chilling as the final shot of Curtis's TV movie Trilogy of Terror from the previous year. ~ Cavett Binion, Rovi

    Lifeforce
    Director Tobe Hooper adapts Colin Wilson's edgy novel The Space Vampires in this in this horror/sci-fi epic with a cult following. The story concerns a joint British-American space probe of Hailey's Comet. Inside the comet, the astronauts, headed by Carlsen (Steve Railsback), find a spaceship that contains the dead bodies of several aliens, along with the naked bodies of three human-like creatures in suspended animation. They bring the aliens aboard the ship for examination, but the specimens are sloppily guarded and soon the trio spread contagion among the population of the ship. Returning to earth, the beautiful space vampire (Mathilda May) escapes into London and begins to feed of the bodies of the unwary Britons, turning the city into a zombie-populated wasteland. It is now left for Carlsen to stop the vampire invaders. ~ Paul Brenner, Rovi

    Leviathan
    Leviathan, a sci-fi thriller directed by George Pan Cosmatos, is the story of a group of scientists who discover a sunken Russian submarine which contains a monster that is the product of a genetic experiment. This film, a hybrid of both The Abyss and Alien, has a decent cast, including Peter Weller as Beck, the lead oceanographer. Working with a good budget, action director Cosmatos, should have been able to put together better action sequences and a more frightening monster, but he gives this derivative, silly film below-par special effects and no particular visual style. Leviathan, while it may entertain a less-sophisticated viewer, has little to offer fans of the genre who are looking for thrilling special effects. ~ Linda Rasmussen, Rovi

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