Review #694: 'The Quatermass Xperiment' (1955)

After the enormous success of the BBC mini-series of the same name, Hammer Studios, which at the time were specialising in supporting features, swooped in to action a feature film adaptation. This being the first horror film they produced, The Quatermass Xperiment can be labelled as the birth of Hammer horror, and for that we are truly thankful. The surprising thing is, for all it's B-movie clunkiness and 1950's science-babble, Quatermass has stood the test of time. It's a serious, occasionally thrilling, and undeniably entertaining little picture.

After a rocket ship holding three astronauts crash-lands in the English countryside, Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) arrives with his troupe of investigators and fellow scientists. After they open the hatch, they find two of the pilots vanished, and only one - Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth) - barely survived. He is taken in for treatment, and watched over by Dr. Briscoe (David King-Wood), who notices his skin taking an oily form. But Carroon's wife wants her husband back and smuggles him out of the hospital, where he escapes into London, absorbing any lifeforms he comes across.

Writer Nigel Kneale apparently disapproved of Donlevy's rather prickly performance as Quatermass, but I feel Donlevy (who was apparently sozzled throughout the entire shoot) is the reason Quatermass works so well. Rather than simply being your average scientist, Quatermass is a subtle madman, waving away procedure and safety in the name of science, playing God because he has the brains to do so. The film also works thanks to some impressive special-effects work, and a stoic Wordsworth in a performance and role that surely became the framework for Christopher Lee's Monster in Hammer's The Curse of Frankenstein (1957).

It's a short, snappy piece that moves along nicely, never getting too caught up in the science and wholeheartedly embracing the fiction. There's also a fine humour that prevails throughout the film, especially in the scenes involving Jack Warner's brilliantly sarcastic Inspector Lomax. It seems silly now to think that the film received the dreaded 'X' certificate back in 1955, but Hammer deliberately aimed the have the film stamped with this rating (as reflected in the 'Xperiment' of the title). This willingness to dare the audience to be scared had them flocking to see it, and, of course, the rest is history.


Directed by: Val Guest
Starring: Brian Donlevy, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth, David King-Wood, Margia Dean
Country: UK

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie