GurlyIamBeach Instant Favorite.

SincereFinest disgusting, overrated, pointless

Brainsbell The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

Bumpy Chip It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

deletewindowson I was lucky enough to find this on YouTube and have rewatched it a couple of times. Definitely IMO as well, it's the best of all the Quatermass offerings. I know that most people will disagree. Oh well. What makes this work is precisely what some would complain about: it's clunky. Very clunky. Funky and clunky. But I like that. Why I don't know. The main actor is.. let's say it: he's terrible. This was live television back when. Maybe that's the charm: they make mistakes. I like that. The man slotted for the part died and this fellow was brought in. Supposedly he "had trouble" with the "technical parts" of his lines. Hmm. I don't know. I just think he was a bad actor. But, as I said, I like that. Don't know why. The space trip is a riot. Really enjoyed it. Especially when they're walking around on the "asteroid". It's wonderfully ridiculous. They wear spacesuits that make them look like giant dildos. No kidding. And yet the series is actually frightening. As clunky as it is it still manages to provide a chill. Don't forget.. this was just after WW2.. after Naziism and Fascism in Europe and the rise of absolutist Communism in Eastern Europe. Therefore you could see the series as metaphor for the fascist or communist usurpation of power in the UK. That's where the chill comes from. Normal people easily corrupted and turned into grim fascist goons working for hideous monsters. That is a metaphor that still resonates and somehow the clunkiness amplifies the effect. For me anyway. You probably wouldn't see it that way. Oh well.

bob the moo Every generation thinks they invented everything themselves and that everything under the sun is new; for myself I find it easy to believe that mistrust of Government, alien conspiracy and the like are all themes which came into sci-fi with the X-Files, and that in the 1950's it was all thinly veiled Communist allegory and nothing else. Quatermass is proof that this idea is of course nonsense. I have seen the film versions but fellow IMDb user Theo Robertson kindly lent me his DVD of the original series so that I can find out about it for myself. The first season offered potential but unfortunately only a couple of episodes existed, but it was enough to make me keen to watch the second season (all of which remains).As before this was broadcast live – amazing to someone like me who is used to such a thing being a "special" event a la ER or 30 Rock doing it. Using some recorded external shots, the show is impressive for being live – the odd flubbed word but no break in reality and no visible problems (although the inability to precisely hit the 30 minute mark must have been a big headache of the BBC at the time). Although the majority of the show is therefore shot on sound stages and limited in regards movement, it doesn't feel like it is because the delivery is so very atmospheric and the tone so very engaging. The very proper 1950's BBC warning about viewer discretion may be a period curio that is amusing now, but one can imagine the impact of this show in this world of sedate and family-friendly programming. The build within the show is mostly strong – from the very early episodes through to the bigger Governmental conspiracy it is mostly all very well done because it remains within the real world and takes real world suspicious and flips them within sci-fi. The lack of trust for Government and for large businesses is all here and it is very well done.Such a shame then that the last episode blows it completely by taking it from this into the realm of fantasy. Heading into this episode I had assumed that the rocket would be used as a missile to destroy the aliens high above earth; when Leo got infected I assumed that the rocket would need a pilot and that he would sacrifice himself in a good ending. While not great ideas, these are better than what we got which was a manned rocket mission which ends with Quatermass returning. It is a poor ending to an otherwise strong run of episodes and it did feel like the season could easily have done without it. Not sure what the fans feel (I may have just committed blasphemy here) but for me it was excessive, a bit silly and went against the tension and drama that had been so consistent up till that point.The cast are different from the previous season – in particular we have a new Quatermass in the form of Robinson. His voice took me a minute to get used to because at times he sounded like he was acting in a theatre rather than TV, but quickly he is natural and good – able to deliver complex dialogue but yet make it dramatic and urgent. He is reasonably well supported by those around him but Grey is a massive problem as his daughter. It is not that she is bad, it is just that she seems to have been almost too "trained" – while others are acting, she is Acting. She speaks very clearly, her dialogue is as crisp as the finest BBC announcer and it would not have surprised me if she had delivered some of her scenes with three books balanced on her head to show how good her posture was; every time she is on screen she is unnatural and rather disruptive – fortunately she is not on too much. Speaking of stiff, the performances of the infected don't really work either as they are just a bit too obviously wrong. This is not a massive problem when we have them as guards, but when they are in parliament I would have liked them to have been a bit more subtle. I remember as a child laughing myself silly at the idea that the aliens in V were easily spotted by not being able to wave without their fingers sticking together in a certain way, here it is almost as obvious – not a massive problem again, but it meant the "menace" that Quatermass describes feeling isn't really as creeping or as hidden as I would have liked.Overall though, this is a very impressive piece of sci-fi. Technically the live broadcast is all the more impressive for the fact that it isn't obviously live but it is the writing and delivery that makes it work. Feeding on themes of conspiracy and paranoia, the plot develops at a good pace and builds menace and tension throughout – it is only some wobbly moments and a really weak final episode that let it down. Well worth seeing – this is almost 50 years old but (production values and effects aside) still feels fresh and relevant.

MARIO GAUCI The 1957 film version of "Quatertmass II" was superior to its predecessor, and one can only assume that the serial was too; again, it obviously goes deeper into the various themes than the film does, but it's interesting to see how Kneale was able to compress his own work without losing the essential quality and potency of his concept (we've seen several films which have had large chunks removed from them with the result that one would hardly recognize the original - but it's certainly not the case with the Quatermass series!).All things considered, I guess I prefer the films to the serials for two reasons: one, the fact that the former - even if still done on a low budget - were invariably more polished (given their crisp photography as opposed to the fuzziness of a TV program); the other reason is the essential tautness of the films - the serials don't necessarily feel draggy and are certainly never boring but, watched in one sitting (which, I guess, was never the intention to begin with!), Kneale's gripping and thought-provoking plots could make for a tiresome overall experience!! John Robinson replaced Reginald Tate (who had died in the meantime) as Professor Quatermass; he does a good job at it but, from the three actors who performed the character on TV (I haven't watched John Mills in the final serial, named simply QUATERMASS, from 1979), he's the one who comes closest to Brian Donlevy's interpretation in the first two films and which so dissatisfied Kneale! The cast also features Hugh Griffith as Quatermass' assistant and future stalwart of British horror cinema Rupert Davies as a government official.The fact of these being live broadcasts was betrayed more than anything else during this particular serial by the surprising number of lines flubbed by the actors throughout - chief among them Robinson himself! Besides, even if scenes that were made memorable by the films (which I obviously watched prior to the serials) generate their own tension and excitement on the small screen, the film's ending is preferable to the one presented here - in which Robinson and Griffith are flown into outer space in order to destroy the planet which was attempting to colonize Earth.

graceblog I could never get totally comfortable with a Quatermass who looks like and spoke like an American gangster. In spite of Brian Donlevy's fine acting skills, I thought he was totally mis-cast in this early sci-fi techno thriller. His gruffness, rudeness, and curtness, especially to women, especially date this story and get downright annoying at times. And his diction hardly creates the illusion of a top level scientist. He says things like "What's dat?" and "Both aya" (for "Both of you").It's the story that carries the movie, and a great story it is. "Meteorites" that are actually carriers of alien germination cells rain down on earth. Once a human gets too close, a meteor bursts open with a jet of ammonia gas and shoots a tiny stinger or spore into the intended carrier. Thus, humans are taken over as hosts to these aliens. Quatermass is pulled into the government conspiracy to hide the beach head "factory" of the alien invasion force when his subordinates spot the unusual series of meteor showers and his own assistant is spirited away by guards of the mysterious plant.Less is definitely more in this story. Granted, the scene where a man, coated with the pitch- like "food" manufactured at the forbidden factory, dies in agony in front of Quatermass is horrifying, even now. Otherwise, the suggestion is more powerful than the special effects. As people are taken over, and Quatermass's search for his missing assistant is thwarted again and again, the tension builds. The "tour" of the plant builds to near terror. But after that, as the viewer actually sees what Quatermass is talking about, the story becomes a lot less powerful. BBC special effects diminished the impact. As any Doctor Who fan can tell you, what the story places in your mind is far superior to what it actually depicted.The enemy forces blocking the pipe with "human pulp" struck me as absurd. And an untested atomic rocket in the backyard of the research HQ was another impossible device in the plot. Ultimately, the story reached for one horror too many, and was further undercut by the especially poor special effects at the end.That being said, it was terrific Sci-Fi for 1955, imaginative, technological, and filmed locally to enhance a "this is now" feel to the horror.For Doctor Who fans, the similarities to SPEAHEAD FROM SPACE and INFERNO are unmistakable. Some of the long shots of the plant look like shots from INFERNO (and, much later, from THE HAND OF FEAR). Another Doctor Who tie-in is the presence of Roger Delgado (the Master, from Doctor Who) as Conrad, though I never was able to spot Conrad in the film. (However, Delgado shows up in the credits, so he's got to be in there somewhere.)It's apparent that the first season of the Third Doctor era borrowed heavily from Quatermass. I'd recommend that hard-core Whovians drop the pence to buy this two-DVD set. You'll enjoy the stories and will be entertained by trying to tie in the plot lines to Third Doc/Liz Shaw era stories. The DVD Double Feature (Quatermass and the Pit and Quatermass 2) are sold by Anchor Bay.