Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Ariella Broughton It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

gavin6942 Professor Bernard Quatermass is in charge of a manned rocket mission that has gone awry. They lost contact with the spaceship at one point and have no idea how far into space it may have traveled. When the rocket crash lands in a farmer's field they find that only one of the three occupants, Victor Carroon, is on board; the others have simply vanished.Somehow when you say "1950s science fiction", this film tends to be overlooked. Often for more American films, some of which are better and many of which are worse. Why? And most interestingly, this comes from Hammer, the fines folks who brought life back to Dracula and Dr. Frankenstein. They are not really known for their science fiction, but maybe they should be.Jeff Szpirglas calls Kino Lorber's Blu-ray release "well worth the wait" Americans had to endure. Indeed, beyond the crisp picture, we get some nice interviews: John Carpenter and Ernest Dickerson, as well as director Val Guest. The latter, of course, is a real treat, but for me Dickerson is the hidden treasure. He has not yet received the attention he deserves.

kennethfrankel I saw this movie around 1958 and I always wanted to see the gauges more clearly. They appear several times in the scene where the camera footage is being reviewed - sort of like their version of a black box. There are 6 gauges: Flux Density, Temperature (perhaps inside and outside, words not legible), Speed, Thrust, Altitude. Quatermass exclaimed how high the temperature was as the crew were being harmed by something. However, both temperature gauges show about the same readings then as before. In fact, one is a bit lower. Thrust is a bit higher, and Speed is much higher. It remains unclear where the ship went during this time. It was supposed to go 1500 miles up. You may also see a similarity with the 2001: Space Odyssey movie, where the awake crew member runs around a round treadmill, at one point being upside down. One of the crew here walks up a wall. People had a mindset that rocket ships would look like the ones in Chesley Bonestell's The Conquest of Space: tall, silver, pointy nose. I always wondered how they could land on an uneven foreign world with unknown soils. Reality: the Lunar landing module looked like a T-4 virus -- short, stubby, short legs sticking out, with a low center of gravity.

Scott LeBrun 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.

Michael_Elliott Quatermass Xperiment, The (1955) *** (out of 4) Effective sci-fi tale from Hammer has Professor Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) sending a rocket into space with three astronauts but when it crashes back to Earth there's only one alive with the other two missing. The one who survived, Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth) soon starts to transform into some sort of monster and before long he's stalking London. I'll be honest and admit that I'm really not a huge fan of British cinema and especially some of the science fiction that came from them during the 50s and 60s. With that said, THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT is without question one of the best of its genre simply because the film goes for the "less is more" approach and this really adds a level of creepiness that's hard to find in a genre picture from this era. Just take a look at the opening sequence as lovers are in a field making out only to heard a loud noise, which sends them running into the house and seconds later there's a crash. The sci-fi genre has had countless spaceship crashes but I really can't think of one more effective than what's on display here. We never really get to see anything but it's the direction of Val Guest that really puts us on the edge of our seats. This strong direction continues in the next major scene when they go to open up the spacecraft to see what's inside. The screenplay is actually very well-written and offers up several good twists and turns as the film moves along. One such example is a scene where the wife of the astronaut tries to sneak him out of a hospital and things don't go as planned. As for the monster, it's quite effective and again it's because of the less is more approach. We really never get a good look at the monster and as it deforms more we just see bits and pieces of it. When we first see what's happened to the hand it's just a few seconds that we get to see but the effect is quite chilling. The performances are another major plus with Donlevy doing an excellent job as the scientist only interested in the future and not caring what's going on in current times. Donlevy manages to be a guy you love to hate and this serves the film well. Wordsworth is very effective in his scenes dealing with his mental breakdown and Jack Warner is fun as the Inspector. THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT has become a cult favorite over the years and it's easy to see why. This genre gave us so many bad movies that it's always hard trying to find one that actually works. It's clear not too much money was spent on the production but everyone involved took the material and raised it up to the levels of a classic.