Lifeforce has been on both my proverbial and literal watch list for years, and I've never gotten around to it because I was never sure if it was good, bad, or so bad it's good. And I still don't feel like I have any real consensus on that! At various times while watching it, the movie hit all three of those opinions for me.
The good: I liked the opening sequence and how it jumps right in to the story of astronauts discovering a weird space ship inside the tail of Halley's Comet. The effects are definitely dated, especially when we see the astronauts navigating around in their space suits. But the alien ship is kinda cool, and what they discover is weird and fun. I also liked all the practical effects used to depict the results of encounters with the aliens.
The bad: Some of the acting is cringe; Peter Firth as a leather-jacketed detective on the "Case of the Desiccated Bodies" is just a weird choice. Also, star Steve Railsback is not a...subtle actor. And I know Tobe Hooper took on the project (an adaptation of Colin Wilson's Space Vampires, a title he wanted to keep but was not able to after the studio rejected it) because he wanted to make his own version of a Hammer film, and he definitely gets the parts of Hammer movies that are boring down pat: lots of British guys in suits talking about what's going on, endlessly.
The so bad it's good: The main space vampire is a beautiful young woman who spends the majority of her screen time completely naked, just wandering around and sucking the "lifeforce" out of her victims. I guess there are a lot of people who would put that firmly in the "good" column, but for me it just reeked of exploitation. That said, Mathilda May, the actress who plays the space vampire, is stunningly beautiful, and she is almost a walking special effect unto herself. I was also pleased to hear, via some of the extras on the Blu-ray I watched, that her experience on set was, for the most part, a positive one.
The version I watched was the longer "international cut," and I really can't say if that's the version one needs to see. It's about fifteen minutes longer than the cut that was more widely released, and supposedly results in a more cohesive storyline, and likely more nudity. But the movie also feels really long, so, maybe the shorter version is more fun? The shorter one also seems to be the version that's more widely available widely online.
All that said, I'm glad I finally got around to watching it, because it really is just an all around nutso film, and I certainly did not expect the story to get as apocalyptic as it does. It's pretty audacious!
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