Yawn. Poorly Filmed Snooze Fest.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Hammer had been producing a string of cheap, intellectual sci-fi flicks at the beginning of the '50s, but it took this TV adaptation for the horror to really set in. Seen today, it's a quaint and rather lovable slice of retro fun, ably mixing horror and sci-fi on a small scale and actually being effective in many of the quieter moments. The plot is a rather predictable piece of hokum about a rampaging alien monster, but what impresses is the level of scientific detail that has been gone into, really adding to the depth of the film. Shot in stark black and white, this is a slow paced but short little number with some great bits of music from James Bernard and solid direction from Val Guest, who would later make the effective THE DAY THE EARTH CAUGHT FIRE.THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT contains many fine scenes. Early on we see a grainy film of what happens to three astronauts on a spacecraft when they are exposed to an alien entity; this is a truly frightening moment despite its age, and still tremendously powerful and unsettling. Similarly the spooky night-time scenes shot in an atmospheric London are great to watch, and an attack on a zoo complete with an aftermath of dead animals makes for great spectacle on the smallest of budgets. The ending of the movie changes gear and becomes a fully-fledged US-style monster shocker, with a giant squid/octopus like creature up on the scaffolding at Westminster Abbey; Les Bowie's special effects are top-notch making this a superb conclusion.The acting is also very good and another reason to check this film out. Many dislike Brian Donlevy's hard-headed Quatermass, but I loved him as he's always picking fights and getting things his own way. His last line in the film is a classic. Strong and amusing support comes from Jack Warner, whilst Thora Hird gets a good moment of outright comedy to herself. The British stalwarts supporting the leads are decent enough, but the best performance comes from creepy Richard Wordsworth as the possessed astronaut gradually overtaken by the alien virus. Out of all the actors to play aliens in the movies (with the exception of the 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS), Wordsworth is by far the most frightening despite only having about one line. Great stuff and a great little movie for genre buffs, dated but still with much to appeal.

A very nice British sc-fi horror oldie, that may very well have some of the first body horror stuff in it, though I'm no expert. I saw part two years before, and I can say it makes no difference which one you watch first, story-wise.Although I thought there was quite some silliness in here (why would a rocket on fire be too hot to put water on, why is immediately opening a rocket door fatal, but a couple of minutes later safe, etc.?), but 'The Quatermass experiments' has a couple of important things going for it. The (body) horror I mentioned before may be minimal, but it is quite well done, there are plenty of terrific locations and settings used (Westminster Abbey even) and, finally, Richard Wordsworth's appearance and acting as the doomed spaceman Victor Carroon are pretty damn good.The story may have its fair share of silly details, but on the whole it works, and it is reasonably fast paced.A big 7 out of 10.

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.

Scripted by Richard Landau and director Val Guest, based on Nigel Kneale's BBC TV serial, "The Quatermass Xperiment" a.k.a. "The Creeping Unknown" is an intelligent, atmospheric, and genuinely creepy movie.A spaceship crashes back down to Earth with only one of three astronauts returning with it. Something is clearly quite wrong with the man; as it turns out, he's in the beginning stages of transforming into something else, and the stakes get raised when he inevitably escapes.Brian Donlevy is the stubborn, gruff scientist in charge, Bernard Quatermass, and he's not your typical hero from sci-fi of the era, as he doesn't exactly try to be friendly or likable. He doesn't really have the time for people with different agendas than his own. Kneale and Guest have disagreed on Donlevy's interpretation, with the author failing to be impressed with this take on the role. A strong supporting cast helps to make the movie fun to watch: Jack Warner as the intrepid Inspector Lomax, David King-Wood as Dr. Gordon Briscoe, Lionel Jeffries as Blake, Maurice Kaufmann as Marsh, Thora Hird as the comedy relief character Rosie, and especially Richard Wordsworth as the doomed astronaut Victor Carroon. His role is nearly a silent one, but he conveys a lot through the tortured expression on his face throughout. That's Jane Asher as the little girl who encounters Carroon.Guest generates some pretty good suspense at select points, and the makeup effects are definitely very good for the time. The final incarnation of the creature is appropriately hideous. One scene that really stands out is at a zoo where the music score drops out and the silence becomes palpable. This is, in this reviewer's humble opinion, the creepiest portion of the movie. James Bernard's music is quite scary, and the movie gets off to a Hell of a great start; it hits the ground running. And the pacing is efficient all the way through. This proved to be an early success for Hammer, who entered their long running Gothic period with "The Curse of Frankenstein" two years later; at this time they were known as Exclusive films.Science fiction fans will be sure to find this a genuinely interesting and tense movie that entertains solidly from beginning to end.Eight out of 10.