The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

A Disappointing Continuation

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

The Creeping Unknown is probably the best title for this movie - as compared to UK's 'The Quatermass Xperiment'. In 1955 this was about creepy as it got, but by today's standards it's rather a standard early Si-Fi entry - if not pretty tame. While well made for its time and budget, the scientific details are now left quite wanting. Some scenes still hold up but others have been overtaken and now depend on how far you're prepared to let your imagination go. If looking to revisit or see this for the first time, be prepared to leave your expectations of believable situations elsewhere and enjoy it for some good B/W photography, music score, certain performances (especially the infected man) and to observe the development of mid-to-vintage cinema. Other than that, it has not really held up all that well. The DVD re-mastering quality is excellent.

Hammer films started out making feature film versions of BBC TV sci- fi serials. These harder edged films although rather tame by today's standards were popular with audiences leading to Hammer specialising in the horror genre.Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) sends a rocket into space containing three astronauts and when it crash lands two of the astronauts are missing but the survivor, Victor Carroon has been taken over by an alien fungus and is slowly mutating.There are shades of Frankenstein in Carroon as he realises that he is becoming a monster and the film has nods to the James Whale Universal classic.The big problem is and a reason why creator Nigel Kneale was unhappy with this version is the characterisation of Quatermass. Donlevy was Irish born but resided in America and here he is portrayed as a ruthless little gangster than a scientist with no time or empathy for anyone. The direct approach is a world away from other portrayals of Quatermass.

This classic British science fiction film opens with the first manned rocket returning to Earth and crash landing in the English countryside. Once opened there is a surprise in store for the authorities; only one of the three-man crew is there, the others have disappeared. The survivor, Carroon, is taken to hospital but leaves with the assistance of a man hired by his wife; Carroon kills this man in a strange way; his body looks as if it has literally been drained. Quatermass, the scientist in charge of the rocket programme, is investigating what has happened and when he realises the danger posed by Carroon he and the police must find him before he can mutate into a strange alien creature and possibly destroy all life it comes into contact with.For such an old film this was still fairly gripping; the special effects might have been weak by today's standards but the producers knew these limitations so kept scenes featuring effects to a minimum; even when we did see Carroon in his mutated form we only saw him in extreme close up or on a television monitor. As there was little gore and no swearing or innuendo it is probably suitable for all but younger children even though it had an X certificate on its original release. The acting was pretty good, especially from Brian Donlevy who played Quatermass and Richard Wordsworth who played Carroon. Quatermass is very different from how one would expect the hero to be today; very restrained and working to defeat the creature with scientific methods rather than with explosions and brute force.

In 1953, British television produced "The Quatermass Experiment," perhaps the first adult science-fiction television series. I watched the first two episodes earlier this year, but was disappointed to learn that the remaining four episodes are considered lost (having been broadcast live and never recorded). Fortunately, the series' success was noticed by British studio Hammer Film Productions, and a feature-length adaptation was released two years later. Considered shocking in its day (and branded with an X-rating, proudly emphasised in the title), 'The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)' traces the fortunes of narcissistic scientist Prof Quatermass (Brian Donlevy), whose foray into space- travel brings home a mysterious parasitic extraterrestrial organism that uses human beings as hosts. There are some intense moments here: a trail of dead animals at a London zoo, a dead man's desiccated facial features, an octopus-like alien organism writhing amid flames...The premise of extraterrestrial parasites using human beings as vectors has since been reused to differing degrees in such films as 'The Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956/1978)' and 'Alien (1979).' Brian Donlevy, a familiar face in American noirs like 'The Glass Key (1942)' and 'The Big Combo (1955),' is the film's only recognisable face, and he seems curiously miscast. Maybe miscast is the wrong word: the Hammer version of Prof Quatermass – cold, resolute, and indifferent – differs significantly from Reginald Tate's keen, almost fatherly researcher. As a result, the audience is left with nobody in whom to place their trust: the dangerously single-minded Quatermass elicits less sympathy than astronaut Victor (Richard Wordsworth), who, albeit unwittingly, becomes the film's primary antagonist. If 'The Quatermass Xperiment' contains comparatively little gore to justify its extreme rating, then its emotional coldness nevertheless leaves a unsettlingly bitter taste.