Rent The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

Creepy, atmospheric and compelling - The Quatermass Xperiment review by VG

A creepy and atmospheric sci-fi body horror tale of mutation, hubris and the struggle to contain panic.

Terrific - The Quatermass Xperiment review by sb

FILM & REVIEW Hammer’s cinematic version of the Nigel Keane tv series. Donlevy plays Quatermass who has launched a rocket into space but after losing contact it crashes back to Earth. It only contains one crew member and two empty space suits with no trace of the others. The only survivor is Carroon (Wordsworth) and he is unable to communicate and seems to be undergoing some kind of physical transformation. His wife engineers his escape from the lab but this time Quartmass has realised he is infected with an alien parasite that feeds off living life forms to grow and multiply and the race is on to stop it. Donlevy who was hired to appeal to US audiences is fine as the tetchy irascible Prof but it’s Wordsworth who gives a really uncanny performance as the human seeing his very humanity being transformed to his horror but is powerless to stop it. It’s interesting how it predates Cronenberg’s body horror stuff by a couple of decades with a cracking finale in Westminster Abbey - 4/5

British Sci-fi. - The Quatermass Xperiment review by Steve

Landmark British sci-fi adapted from writer Nigel Kneale's hugely popular live BBC broadcasts. The camera effects, models and makeup for the Hammer version are rudimentary, though still an improvement on the homespun creations on the telly. But the key difference is the serial lasted for three hours, and the film barely 80m. So everything is speeded up.

Which gives the action energy, but unfortunately squeezed out Kneale's intriguing pseudo-scientific detail. Professor Quatermass' (Brian Donlevy) experimental rocket project goes awry when the spacecraft loses contact with base before crashing to earth with two of the crew missing and a third visibly mutating. Who then goes AWOL.

There's an exciting scene when the team of national emergency bigwigs- led by Quatermass- watch grainy CCTV footage of a mysterious incident during the flight, which is classic Kneale. But it's mostly narrative, which Val Guest portrays as realistically as possible. So there is a pretty basic sci-fi premise imaginatively shot on a shoestring.

Donlevy comes in for criticism as a tough, scruffy, Irish American version of the Professor. Admittedly, it's a bit disappointing that the head of British rocketry isn't actually a Brit. Or at least a German. Still, Richard Wordsworth is excellent as the mutant. The budget defeats the visual effects, but this is still irresistible, with plenty of imaginatively staged shocks.