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Growing up, I loved Hammer movies—and I still do. Their gothic chillers are some of my favorite movie experiences. As a 10-year-old, I first watched The Quatermass Xperiment on late-night BBC television, and I remember (as best I can) being riveted by the story. That was the late ‘70s, early ‘80s. Now, after re-watching the movie in 2011, I want to go back to that 10-year-old and say: You thought that was good? You need to watch a few more ‘50s sci-fi films before making a judgment call on that one.
Made by British studio Hammer in 1955 and directed by Val Guest, The Quatermass Xperiment (also known in the U.S. as The Creeping Unknown), plays into the Cold War zeitgeist and general paranoia of the period (Invasion of the Body Snatchers and The Day the Earth Stood Still being prime—and more effective—examples).
The plot of Xperiment is simple. A space craft containing three men crash lands on Earth. Only one of the men has come back alive—barely. We soon discover that the men were part of an expedition spearheaded by the driven and arrogant Professor Bernard Quatermass (played by a very stiff and not at all appealing Brian Donlevy). Unfortunately the lone survivor, Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth, who utters nary a word in the movie), comes back infected with some form of alien mutation virus, which gradually turns him into a vegetable and eventually a kind of octopus beast. Carroon escapes from the medical facility where he’s receiving treatment and goes on a killing spree around London, pursued by Quatermass and a bunch of similarly underdeveloped characters.
The finale—if you can call the tensionless last ten minutes a finale—takes place at the gothic edifice of Westminster Abbey.
The sad thing about The Quatermass Xperiment is that it lacks a character that you can empathize with. Some have suggested Wordsworth’s Carroon is such a character, but he’s given such little depth that it hardly counts. Quatermass himself is so unlikable and quarrelsome (and American when he should be English) that you’ll wonder why his name is even in the title at all. He comes across simply as a one-note bully. Sir John Mills played a more nuanced (and flawed) Quatermass in a mini-series for British television in 1979, but that’s for another day. The film also spawned a couple of sequels, which, if I remember correctly (or not), were at least more character driven.
Having said all this, I do hope that Hammer continues to release its back catalogue, as I have become a little bit of a completist. Or maybe I’m just trying to recapture my youth. I really miss being 10 years old, when every horror movie was scary and every low-budget B-movie was a masterpiece. Unfortunately, this “classic” does not hold up.
DVD Review:
This limited edition release by MGM is just that. The re-released disc would have befitted from a commentary track (which apparently was part of the film’s 2002 release and was performed by Marcus Hearn, a Hammer scholar) or a documentary on the character of Quatermass and his many iterations.
