The Quatermass Xperiment

Dir: Val Guest

1955

*****

Based on the BBC's cutting edge adult thriller series The Quatermass Experiment that aired in 1953, the 1955 film version condenses the original six episodes into eighty minutes quite seamlessly. The budget is bigger and so is the overall production, Val Guest was the perfect choice of director who took inspiration from films such as Panic in the Streets and developed a cinéma vérité style that would influence pretty much every sci-fi and thriller made since. The initial shot of the rocket ship sticking up out of the ground in the middle of a moon-lit field still looks impressive today, as do many of the special effects. The television series is credited for being one of the first intelligent adult sci-fi dramas ever made, the film took this success and made it a global hit, influencing a whole host of films and TV series. It is extremely reminiscent of 1951's The Thing From Another World but I would argue that there is so much more to it. For one thing, you could say that this was the first mainstream appearance of what could be described as a Zombie. Richard Wordsworth is terrifying as Victor Carroon, a pilot returned from space with no explanation of how his fellow crew-mates have disappeared or were the space rocket they were in had been. Made only a decade after the second world war ended, many have suggested that it fed off peoples fear of invasion and have drawn similarities but this sort of sci-fi was around way before the war, it was only ever in comics and pulp-fiction, this was the among the first times it had been seen in film and done well. I, like many, weren't that enamoured by Brian Donlevy's take on Prof. Bernard Quatermass but I do think Jack Warner's is the best Inspector Lomax. Parts of the film are now quite dated but the majority of its content is still pretty advanced. I loved the final scenes and how the film was left with a rather devastating realization (like all good sci-fi should be left) but I do wonder if the intended sequel (X the Unknown) went about the story in a slightly more intelligent manner. Still, any film whereby an alien being takes over a man's body and turns into a Cactus is alright in my book and I thoroughly love it and thank it for influencing all of my favourite thriller/horror/sci-fi favourites made since. First of the really great Hammer Horrors.