Review - The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)

The Quatermass Xperiment also known as the Creeping Unknown (in America), is a 1950's British B movie. It is the first Hammer Horror film and was based on a BBC series.



The film was the first of it's kind and was shown to us as a comparison of a British B movie. This is actually very useful for our group project as we are going for a British B movie trailer.

The film starts at the beginning, with a space ship crash landing. We find out that the scientist Quatermass organised an experiment to go into outer space. All the crew except for one had vanished. The one that remained was somehow different. It was later assumed that he had absorbed the rest of the crew. This absorbing creature wreaked havoc over the city. His form changed as he absorbed more things. By the end of the film the monster had taken the form of a big slimy blob with tentacles.

I think one of the key things that makes it British is how the monster is withheld until near the end. It is quite subtle how the monster starts off quite human, but gradually is revealed the monster within. This is something which we at B3D Studios have done in our trailer. The spaceman isn't revealed as the enemy, until about half way through the trailer, and it isn't until two thirds of the trailer that we film out that he is invisible.

This film came about 10 years before Doctor Who started in the 1960's. Doctor Who has taken influences from Quatermass, in how they took a slower pace (The originals anyway) and how long it would take to reveal something new.

So before Doctor Who came The Quatermass Xperiment, a first for British Sci fi B movies, that inspired many films to come.