The Quatermass Xperiment│Kino Lorber
Courtesy of Kino Lorber
by CHAD KENNERK
The story initially appeared in the form of BBC television serial The Quatermass Experiment, which became quite a phenomenon in the UK. By the time the final episode aired, the event programme had attracted nearly 5 million viewers—essentially all of the UK television audience at that time. Given its popularity, it didn’t take long for a film adaptation to arrive. The rights were snatched up by Hammer Films and the production became the launching pad for the genre Hammer is most closely associated with and remembered for today—horror.
Val Guest was tapped to direct the chilling film about a spacecraft that returns to Earth with an unexpected visitor. When the only surviving astronaut returns with an unidentifiable illness, doctors attempt to help the man recover while an investigation begins to discover what happened to the other astronauts. When the astronaut escapes from the hospital, Scotland Yard detective Lomax (Jack Warner) and Professor Bernard Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) attempt to track him down before it's too late. Britain’s answer to science fiction films like The Day the Earth Stood Still and War of the Worlds, Quatermass brings the same sense of fear and dread. Known in the US under the title The Creeping Unknown, the film is a reflection of its time. The memory of the atomic bomb and its power for destruction was still fresh in the public’s mind, along with growing obsessions over flying saucers and paranoia related to Russia. The space race between the United States and Russia began the summer of the film’s UK release, when the United States announced its intent to launch artificial satellites.
That original UK release in August of 1955 intentionally misspelt ‘experiment’ to capitalise on the British Board of Film Censors’ newly formed ‘X’ certificate, which forbade minors from attending. It was a brilliant marketing strategy which thrust an inevitable spotlight on The Quatermass Xperiment and helped distinguish it from its TV counterpart. Incidentally, playwright and former Film Review contributor Arthur Watkins introduced the ‘X’ certificate during his tenure as the head of the BBFC. Watkins wrote in our 1956 annual that, “The ‘X’ certificate is issued to films which are unquestionably adult in theme or treatment and are regarded as unsuitable for any child under sixteen to see. It should not be assumed, as a small minority of less responsible showmen have sought to persuade the public, that ‘X’ stands exclusively for sex, the sordid or the sensational. Those who patronise ‘X’ films solely for these attributes will deserve everything that they don’t get.”
In addition to the connection to Watkins, a number of other former Film Review contributors had a hand in the film, including production manager T.S. Lyndon-Haynes, who had worked on such films as The Third Man and The African Queen. Among the cast of The Quatermass Xperiment are former Film Review contributors Jack Warner and Lionel Jeffries. The little girl that appears in the Frankenstein-inspired scene by the riverbank is none other than Jane Asher, who would grow up to star opposite Vincent Price in Roger Corman's The Masque of the Red Death, among many other film roles. Following the success of Quatermass, Hammer leaned into horror, bringing classic monsters back to the screen and in colour for the first time. The rest is horror history. The influence of Quatermass can be felt through films like The Blob and, more recently, in the premise of films such as Alex Garland’s Annihilation.
Originally released by Kino Lorber in 2014, this fresh re-release contains all of the original disc’s extras, along with new audio commentary by film historian and screenwriter Gary Gerani. Among the special features are an on-camera interview with legendary director John Carpenter, featurettes which include a look at the various versions of Quatermass, and an audio commentary by the film’s director Val Guest, moderated by Marcus Hearn. Kino Lorber has also encoded the film at a higher bit rate on a dual-layered BD50 disc, giving the feature an even more polished presentation.
The Quatermass Xperiment returned to Kino Lorber blu-ray on 12 December.
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KINO LORBER has been a leader in independent art house distribution for over 45 years, releasing 35 films per year theatrically, which have garnered seven Academy Award nominations. The company also brings over 350 titles to home entertainment each year through digital and physical media releases. Most recently, the company has expanded its own direct digital platforms through the acquisition of leading international series streamers MHz Choice and Topic, as well as the launch of Kino Film Collection, a subscription service for film lovers showcasing new releases direct from theaters plus curated international, indie, and documentary films and newly restored classics from the Kino Lorber library.
