Hammer Films carved out a niche making low budget films for the British quota market in the 40s and 50s – they specialised adapting popular radio and TV programs for the big screen, often using American stars, so it was no surprise when they adapted the popular BBC serial, bringing in Brian Donlevy to play the title role.
Quatermass is incredibly driven here – he’s sent three people up into space without government approval in order to make progress, he bosses people around at the crash site, he bosses the doctor around (he won’t let the surviving astronaut go to the hospital), at the end he takes over London electricity supply then sooks off t the end and doesn’t talk to anyone. He’s a real anti-hero. He’s certainly not as sympathetic as the poor old astronaut, who came back a bit crazy and turned on by the sight of blood, with his bad-acting girlfriend (Maira Davies – shockingly bad).
While this is a science fiction film, it has a hefty dose of horror - lots of suspense and gory make up. And there are strong parallels with the Frankenstein story, particularly a scene where the astronaut befriends a little girl. Val Guest keeps the action thumping along at a great pace from the beginning (I'm assuming it was his idea to add the slightly comic firemen at the beginning). There is some unintentional humor (the chemist going to a screaming man “are you hurt?”) and the final creature isn’t very scary, but this holds up incredibly well. I started watching it just casually and couldn't stop.
No comments:
Post a Comment