The Unsettling Nature of Quatermass

I have three movies I call my "comfort films" that I will try and watch whenever I see them listed on the TV schedules or can turn to (via blu-rays, dvd, or streaming) whenever I'm feeling a bit down and need an escape hatch.

These are Raiders of The Lost Ark, George Pal's The Time Machine, and Quatermass and The Pit.

To me, these are perfect, review-proof works of genius that I can never tire of watching, all with deeper meanings and impacts on my life than what is shown on screen.

Today, we're thinking about the "adventures" of Professor Bernard Quatermass.

My first exposure to the world of Quatermass was the apocalyptic 1979 sci-fi thriller series known simply as Quatermass.

This bleak, four-part miniseries had a major impact on its 13-year-old viewer when first screened; implanting in me a fascination not just for adventure stories set amongst urban decay but the heroic futility of standing up to alien creatures of unimaginable power and destructive capabilities.

I am sure there is some synchronicity between my first viewing of this televisual tale and my discovery - not long afterwards - and immediate love for, the works of HP Lovecraft.

From Cthulhu to Galactus, all these cosmic entities can trace their influence on me back to watching Quatermass on ITV in the late 70s.

So inspired by this series was I that I also clearly remember creating (but never playing) a Quatermass role-playing game system and, once we started playing the comic book RPG Villains & Vigilantes, I named an alien race after the "enemy" in Quatermass - The Harvesters... although they were nowhere near as powerful as that entity!

Set at the end of the 20th Century (the future when this was made), Quatermass sees the return to London of Bernard Quatermass (Sir John Mills), founder of the British Rocket Group which pioneered space travel in the UK (see The Quatermass Experiment of 1953 and its cinematic remake).

He's been living in seclusion in Scotland and is unaware of the anarchy spreading through England, with gangs roaming the streets, power cuts and the general collapse of society. He is looking for his runaway granddaughter and instead meets up with a fellow scientist (Simon MacCorkindale).

Also roaming the land are a group known as The Planet People - hippies who gather at stone circles, prophesying a mass transmigration of those who "believe" to a Utopian alien planet.

Then the beams of light start coming from the sky, hitting the places where people have gathered and seemingly disintegrating them; although the Planet People believe they have been "taken to The Planet".

Seen now Quatermass can seem slightly melodramatic in places, but it can still deliver an incredible impact with its portrayal of a very British Apocalypse, complete with polite graffiti, a plate of sandwiches and a thermos of tea.

It faces themes of science versus belief, youthful enthusiasm versus the experience of age and the human spirit's unwavering strength in the face of overwhelming odds.

If HP Lovecraft were alive in the 1970s, this is exactly what he would have been writing - man as an insignificant speck in the Universe, caught up in events way beyond his understanding and ability to comprehend.

Don't expect answers, explanations or convenient happy endings - there is no Deus Ex Machina in the world of Bernard Quatermass... it is that God In The Machine that is "harvesting" the human race!

Originally created by writer Nigel Kneale (who also penned The Stone Tape) in the paranoia-fuelled 1950s, Quatermass - an intellectual professor defending the Earth from extraterrestrial threats through the use of brains rather than brawn - is an obvious precursor of The Doctor (who shares many of the same traits and convictions, despite being an alien himself).

Kneale wrote three original Quatermass serials for television: The Quatermass Experiment (an astronaut returning to Earth unknowingly carrying an alien creature which is continually mutating); Quartermass II (aliens take over a research plant on the South Coast); and Quatermass And The Pit (workmen in London unearth an old, crashed spaceship and release 'psychic ghosts').

I discovered all three of these stories through Arrow's script books, published in the late '70s, almost certainly released to cash in on Quatermass.

Later would come the radio series The Quatermass Memoirs, first broadcast as part of a season about 'The Fifties' on Radio 3 in 1996, and while some of the old news clips are a bit scratchy, the whole drama-documentary is an informative, inspirational and terrifying reflection of a time when the world was gripped by fear of nuclear holocaust.

It is a five-part documentary about the origins of the character, intercut with genuine 1950s news broadcasts, exerpts from the original serials, recollections and anecdotes from Nigel Kneale and an original mini-play by Kneale, set in the 1970s, wherein Bernard Quatermass, having retired to the wilds of Scotland (as mentioned at the start of Quatermass), discusses his life with a young journalist.

Long before Space:1999, UFO, Thunderbirds and even Doctor Who, there was ... Quatermass.

Throughout most of the 1950s, Quatermass was a British science fiction institution which appeared both on TV and in the cinema. Yet perhaps more importantly, it was the first adult based, dramatic science fiction television show in the world.

Now, over 70 years later, Quatermass not only lives on through its devoted fan base, but is a name which continues to resonate with science fiction fans both young and old.

In this special retrospective study, we look back upon the history of this highly celebrated franchise, whilst not only addressing the positive aspects the series brought to the science fiction genre but also the many challenges it faced in doing so.

Galaxy Of Terror (1981)

Recommended to me by my good mate Paul, Galaxy Of Terror is a slightly bonkers, early '80s Alien-wannabe, produced by the legendary Roger Corman and resplendent in that "they're making this up as they go along" feeling that he always brings to his movies.

In an alien galaxy, there is a world ruled by a glowing-headed dictator known as The Master (a very natty special effect, it must be said, and a character that has nothing to do with Doctor Who), who hand picks a miss-matched team of astronauts to embark on a rescue mission to the desolate planet Morganthus - where an earlier ship has crashed.

The rescue team boasts a host of well-known performers: Erin Moran (Joanie from Joanie Loves Chachi and Happy Days), Robert Englund (Nightmare On Elm Street, V etc,) David Lynch-stalwart Grace Zabriskie, horror-movie veteran Sid Haig and familiar TV faces Ray Walston and Bernard Behrens.

Throw in some rubbery monsters and an unpleasant assault by a giant rape-maggot that ranks with the original Evil Dead's animated tree as just plain wrong, and it's no wonder this has become a cult classic.

To be fair it quite quickly shakes off its Alien aspirations as it heads more into pseudo-psychological territory somewhere between Shakespeare and Space 1999.

For a low-budget schlockfest, Galaxy Of Terror has some very impressive visuals: as well as the storm-lashed surface of Morganthus we are treated to the sci-fi/Dungeons & Dragons delights of the massive, maze-like interior of a pyramidal structure the adventurers have to explore to turn off the energy beam that caused them to crash-land as well.

And if that isn't enough of an incentive to track this B-movie treasure down (as long as you can stomach the giant maggot scene and a squirm-worthy moment involving a shard of crystal sliding under someone's skin) there's the added bonus that the film is only 81 minutes long.