Matialth Good concept, poorly executed.

Bessie Smyth Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Beulah Bram A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Kayden This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Red-Barracuda I first encountered The Quatermass Xperiment in the long defunct magazine 'Halls of Horror' when they published it in comic format. Brilliantly drawn by Brian Lewis it made the film look very evocative and scary. It wasn't until many years later that I finally caught up with the film proper when it played on late night TV and, while it turned out to be less violent and salacious than the comic adaption, it certainly turned out to be a very impressive bit of 50's sci-fi. Adapted from a BBC mini-series written by Nigel Neale, it tells the story of a rocket which crash lands in the UK after a deep space mission, the one surviving astronaut emerges from the craft in a near comatose state. It transpires that he has been infected by a mysterious space organism which is slowly mutating him into a deadly creature. He escapes and begins a murderous rampage which involves him literally sucking the life from various lifeforms…plant, animal, human.This film was unusual in that it was a very rare example where producers submitted a movie to the censors with a cut specifically designed to obtain an X rating. Most tried to avoid this as it limited their audience considerably and when you consider that up to this point science fiction was aimed at young audiences, it seems pretty clear that The Quatermass Xperiment heralded a very new approach to the genre, one which presented a sci-fi premise where the consequences were very horrific. But perhaps the most significant thing about this film was that it was the movie where the b-movie producers Hammer hit upon the idea that they may have a knack for horror and the rest, as they say, is history…This is a commendably quite dark and pessimistic bit of 50's sci-fi. It has a rich atmosphere helped quite a bit from the gloomy post-war British setting. The lead character adds to this a bit with Professor Quatermass a very misanthropic individual for a main 'hero' in a movie. Brian Donlevy does a good job on the character, ramping up his monomaniacal characteristics. Richard Wordsworth impresses too as the doomed astronaut; it's a wordless performance where he gives off considerable menace by looks and small gestures. There is a nod to Frankenstein (1931) where he interacts with a young girl (incidentally played by future beauty Jane Asher!), which is a scene which shows his performance was certainly in Boris Karloff territory. The film eventually winds up with a memorable finale at Westminster Abbey where we see the final creature, this is followed by an impressively downbeat ending where Quatermass delivers a brilliantly cold line – a perfect ending to one of the best sci-fi films of the 50's.

cstotlar-1 I saw this as a child and it scared the living daylights out of me. This is an excellent example where less is more. The less we see the more we are left to imagine. Much of this was budget-oriented, agreed, but the audience filling in the missing blanks ix excruciating. Donlevy is out of place here, unfortunately, but the "silent" character is absolutely phenomenal. The music works quite well for me and I'm a professional musician. The pacing is spot on. It's the first of the Val Guest movies for me and I'll keep my eyes peeled for others. What good horror movies they made in the fifties and early sixties! Curtis Stotlar

capkronos This is a feature film remake of the 3-hour-long BBC production "The Quatermass Experiment" (1953), which was broadcast live in 1953 and is now partially lost in its complete form (only the first two 30 minute segments still survive). For this film version, Richard Landau and director Val Guest have compressed the original Nigel Kneale-penned television play into a more compact running time ranging from 78 to 82 minutes depending on the cut. All of the original actors from the TV version were replaced, with American actor Brian Donlevy taking over the central role of Professor Bernard Quatermass from Reginald Tate, who was slated to reprise the role but passed away before filming began. Not only an important genre title content-wise, this is also noteworthy as being one of the few Hammer horror films to precede their breakthrough hit THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957). It was released in the U.S. under the title "The Creeping Unknown" in 1956, became an international hit and led to numerous other Quatermass tales, starting with the TV miniseries "Quatermass II" (1957), which itself prompted a theatrical remake that same year (released as "Enemy from Space" in the U.S.). That was followed by a third miniseries called "Quatermass and the Pit" (1959), which eventually saw a theatrical version in 1967 (released in the U.S. as "Five Million Years to Earth" in 1968) and brief revivals in both 1979 and 2005.A rocket crash-lands in a field in the English countryside. Part of a secret project headed over by scientist Quatermass, the ship had been launched "1500 miles into space" and was manned by three astronauts... only one of whom has returned safely. Engineer Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth) is that lone survivor and yet it's immediately apparent that something isn't quite right with him. For starters, he's disoriented, sickly and no longer speaks. He's also ice cold to the touch, his fingerprints change completely and his skin slowly begins to look cracked, pale and gray. Further analysis by Dr. Gordon Briscoe (David King-Wood) reveal his heart rate and blood pressure are so off that he *should* be dead. A gelatin-like substance is discovered aboard the crashed space crash that may be the remains of the two missing astronauts and, since a film camera was placed aboard, our heroes at least get a bit of proof that something inscrutable and other-worldly happened on board. They're just not entirely sure what.While Quatermass, Lomax (Jack Warner), an inspector who's been assigned the case, and others attempt to get to the bottom of things, Victor is taken to a clinic and put under observation. Not wanting her husband to be some guinea pig, his wife Judith (Margia Dean) hires sleazy private eye Christie (Harold Lang) to pose as an orderly and help bust him out of the clinic. Things don't go off quite as planned and, by the time the authorities get there, there's only a blood-drained corpse and a missing cactus to tell the tale of what really happened. Now free and on the run, Victor continues to mutate into something inhuman, absorbing other life forms (including a zoo full of animals) along the way until he becomes some a large, ever-growing, tentacled, octopus-like blob who finally turns up at the BBC.Well-directed, written, photographed, paced and acted (for the most part), this was influential not only to 50s sci-fi and horror in general (and the development of Hammer) but also the concept of 'body horror;' a subgenre of film where one's body is overtaken by something and goes through horrifying physical mutations as a result. That style of film would begin to become very popular in the mid 70s and continues to be popular to this day. This is one of the earliest films I've seen to attempt that. The makeups and special effects (by Philip Leakey and Les Bowie) I frequently see criticized, but they didn't bother me at all. In fact, I found them quite good for the time.Quatermass creator Kneale had mixed feeling about this version, but most especially disapproved of casting several American actors in lead roles. Though Donlevy claimed to be from Ireland and IMDb states he was born in Ireland, he was actually born in Cleveland, Ohio and the whole Irish thing was something cooked up entirely by his publicist. Either way, the actor doesn't do a bad job at all and his commanding, hard-edged and somewhat pushy performance is appropriate for the character. Apparently Guest didn't mind his work either because the actor got to reprise this role in the 1957 follow-up. Most everyone seems to agree that the real standout of the film is Wordsworth, the great-great grandson of poet William Wordsworth, who creates a pitiable and sympathetic character with no words and a limited amount of screen time. The character certainly has more than a few things in common with the Frankenstein Monster.The only flaw in the central casting was Dean, a former Miss California and one-time girlfriend of the president of 20th Century Fox, who was hoisted upon the filmmakers as part of the American co-financing deal. Yes, despite being currently listed on this site as being an entirely British production, this was actually co-produced and financed by Americans (Robert L. Lippert's "Regal Films; which was more-or-less a branch of Fox). Guest would later say of Dean: "She was a sweet girl, but she couldn't act." As a result of her inappropriate American accent (and presumed poor performance), all of her dialogue was dubbed over by someone else in post. Unfortunately, whatever actress they chose to dub the role also could not act and didn't even sound British! Regardless, it stands out like a sore thumb in this otherwise professionally-done movie.

lemon_magic One of the most impressive things about "Quatermass" is that the creators involved with the concepts seem to be consistently good at making a modest budget go a very long way towards an impressive story.I remember seeing the "Quatermass II" television serial a few months back and being completely pulled into the suspense and mystery of the story in spite of the tiny budget for special effects because the writing was intelligent, well thought out, and without a dull moment in the screenplay. The same is true here.While the budget is obviously considerably higher, it's still a modest little thing compared to contemporaries like "This Island Earth" and "The Day The Earth Stood Still", but it doesn't matter, because this is a movie about ideas. It works well on many levels, from the underplayed makeup and transformation effects for the "returning" astronaut to the staging and execution of the final showdown in a local British landmark.It's also pretty cool that the creators stayed with the idea of Quatermass as a gruff, headstrong and abrasive man. But the character always means what he says and has solid reasons for his actions; and when a character like Quatermass starts showing concern and anxiety, it's much more effective in enhancing the suspense than if he were usually a "warm fuzzy" kind of guy.In short, this is a minor classic, well worth taking the time to see if you get the chance.