The Red Eye Report's 2010 October Horrorthon #25: "X the Unknown"

When there's somethin' strange under British soil, who you gonna call? Well, Quatermass is busy at the moment, so in X the Unknown, Dr. Adam Royston (Dean Jagger) answers the call for Queen and country. An expert in all things atomic, Royston is called to investigate when soldiers on a training exercise experience an earthquake that leaves one dead and others covered in radiation burns. Similar incidents occur throughout the area, always around sources of radiation and leaving behind a melted corpse or two. Though he's as wary of accepting the absurd as his superiors, Royston deduces that a force suppressed over several millennia has once more made its way to the surface. Feeding on the radioactivity mankind has come to fear, it grows larger with every meal, leaving Royston scant time to devise a solution to stop it dead in its tracks.

After slogging through the pseudo-academic dud that Quatermass and the Pit turned out to be, I hoped that Hammer's X the Unknown would pick up its pace. For a while, what actually began life as a Quatermass adventure does pretty well for itself, by way of not saving all its thrills and chills for the end. X the Unknown is the title, and it's the unknown that drives this premise, as viewers are wondering what the deuce is going on from the word go. Director Leslie Norman teases and prods you in just the right ways, preserving the story's mystique while keeping you watching to see what happens next. The level of suspense is just as well-paced, starting with a few minor incidents before working its way up to the Incredible Melting Man (which, for a late '50s sci-fi picture, is a pretty gruesome image). The presence of a valid threat is always there, and you know it isn't going to wait til the last ten minutes to actually do anything.

Now I hate to keep bringing up Quatermass and the Pit, but whereas that film got unnecessarily verbose, X the Unknown can be alarmingly simplistic. If it had been a straight-shooter and gone for the typical B-movie yuks, it'd be another story, but it tries to get all cerebral on us to little effect. The flick attempts a conflict between Royston and his skeptical boss (Edward Chapman) that devolves into one of my least favorite movie cliches: the looming crisis that can't be solved because one character is being an obstinate prick. Oh, and remember that steady progression of suspense that was working so effectively? Well, that's ruined once X the Unknown decides to announce the main monster's identity with no fanfare, and while I dare not spoil it myself, let's say that it's hard to accept so many people running in fear of such a snicker-inducing foe. To top it all off, we end on a cryptic note that might have worked had we known where it came from or what the hell it even meant.

So again, a rendezvous with Hammer cinema lets me down, but vintage horror/sci-fi fans could have fun with X the Unknown. Dean Jagger gives a solid performance, the atmosphere can get durn creepy, and the little graphic content there is works like an unsettling charm. X the Unknown isn't the nadir of '50s science fiction, but that it puts on airs with so much rampant goofiness makes it hard to get into on either level.

The Red Eye Report's 2010 October Horrorthon #18: "Quatermass and the Pit"

Beneath the bustling streets of London lies the greatest terror to face England since S Club 7. While working on extending a subway tunnel at fictional Hobbs End Station, a construction crew uncovers the well-preserved remains of ape men dating back five million years. But as the scientific community jumps for collective joy at this discovery, an even more fantastic find is just a few shovelfuls of mud away. Workers proceed to dig out a strange vessel, which very much intrigues Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir), a professor asked to help oversee the excavation. But the more evidence he turns up, the more Quatermass believes that not only is the craft not of this earth but is also the source of an ancient evil. Of course, the military shoots down his theories in order to avoid a panic, but pandemonium is just what runs amok when whatever's in that ship decides to unleash its powers on an unsuspecting populace.

Quatermass and the Pit is among England's most well-known science fiction tales -- though it beats the hell outta me as to why. Perhaps it's a response to how gung-ho America is with its own sci-fi, featuring characters who are scientists in the sense that there are beakers around when they blast little green men to kingdom come. Thus, patience is a virtue in Quatermass and the Pit, as the story hinges on the professor learning exactly what's buried down below before the worst occurs. It's a film in which fools pay the price for rushing in, but while that sounds great on paper, the flick doesn't leave itself much to go on. Hypotheses and experimentation do not a rip-roaring thriller make here, and the story's admittedly cool concepts end up muddled as a result. It's hard to discuss without stopping in spoiler country, but Quatermass and the Pit pulls the "we are the monsters" card with little basis for it, which has much to do with the film's inconsistent stock in the fantastic.

I don't think it's a big shock to learn that we're dealing with aliens here, but just try to dissuade Quatermass and company from presuming otherwise. As the professor delves into the bizarre history of Hobbs End, the possibilities of ghosts, demons, and poltergeists are brought up, but just about anyone who mentions aliens may as well be laughed out of Europe. It's another case of Indiana Jones 4 Syndrome, in which you've figured things out two acts before the story has, and the movie's only response is to plug its ears and go, "Lalalalala!" Plus, while it might just be my lack of familiarity, Quatermass just doesn't seem to be that interesting of a character. This is only the second time I've seen a Quatermass adventure (and I caught the last one three years ago), but there's still nothing about the professor to suggest why he's so hailed of a genre hero. He's your typical scientist trying to convince the world that he's not off his rocker, and though Keir's performance isn't bad by any means, he doesn't do much to deviate from the archetype.

Quatermass and the Pit was a Hammer production, not to mention one that wasn't a Gothicized monster mash. The Hammer touch does come through in the eerie atmosphere, and as chuckle-inducing as the big revelations are, director Roy Ward Baker does a good job of getting you at least a little freaked out by the unknown. But overall, Quatermass and the Pit is a really stiff watch, its ideas too ill-conveyed to fully intrigue and its structure too formal to enjoy as a straight-up fright flick.