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Quatermass 2 (Enemy from Space) (1956)
Topic Started: May 16 2012, 01:04 PM (565 Views)
Laughing Gravy
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Professor Quatermass is back; he's working on a model city to be built on the surface of the moon, the crazy guy. Something odd is happening in a remote village in England, though: there are reports that people are being burned by strange meteorites falling from the sky (which is where meteorites generally fall from, it says here). Prof. Q heads off to investigate with a science pal, and they discover what appears to be a full-sized replica of his moon city. The friend is killed by the city's guards, so Q hot-foots it back to London to try to convince authorities to investigate. Their inspection party is ambushed and most of them killed; Q holds up with some of the townspeople inside the city, and discover there are millions of tiny creatures that can band together and form one giant pulsating mass from outer space, apparently visitors from an asteroid hiding behind the moon. Can Quatermass and his allies find some way to destroy the enemy from space? I'll bet they can, if they think hard enough.

A very fine film that I enjoyed a lot, and I'm not typically a fan of cerebral science-fiction, preferring the monsters-in-rubber-suits kind; thanks to director Val Guest for giving me both. Shell Haven Refinery in Essex portrayed the moon city, and quite effectively, I thought. Brian Donlevy's apparent "screw this, I'm giving you one take and then heading to the bar" attitude actually works here, because the character is supposed to be quite distraught and in a hurry to uncover the secret of what's going on. Various persons are turned into controlled minions by the meteorites, resulting in a tell-tale scar that looks like a pimple with a big "V" on it. The minion part actually seems inspired by The Body Snatchers book (being filmed at the same time here in the U.S.).

Highly enjoyable Hammer sci-fi, the best one yet, I think. And oh, that pulsating monster! Nightmarish.
"I'm glad that this question came up, because there are so many ways to answer it that one of them is bound to be right." - Robert Benchley
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Don Diego
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I rember watching this movie on TV - the best of the Quatermass films (the TV show is just as good) It even has Sid James.
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Black Tiger
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I go along with Don Diego. This is the first Quatermass film and saw and I still think it the best.

With the revival of so many characters, how about a new Quatermass movie?
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JazzGuyy
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I'm partial to Quatermass and the Pit. It was the last movie to really scare the hell out of me.
TANSTAAFL!
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