Movie Review – Quatermass And The Pit

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Spoiler alerts Hammer movies made three quite faithful film versions of the BBC Quatermass TV serials written by Nigel Kneale, of which this one, made in 1967, was the only one in colour and generally regarded as the best. An attempt to do a fourth TV show decades later met with less success (mostly for being rubbish). Quatermass And The Pit neatly mixes science fiction and supernatural phenomena by giving scientific explanations for very mysterious and ultimately deadly events. As well as a group of prehistoric human skeletons, an alien space-ship is found during the digging of a new London underground tunnel. It is situated under Hobb’s Lane which has experienced spooky events (Hob itself being a name linked to The Devil). The ship gives off electrical magnetic charges that kill, and take possession of people’s minds. They also cause poltergeist activity (mostly throwing metal objects around). The army and police ignore Professor Quatermass’s passionate pleas to evacuate the area. The Professor works out that the spaceship is from Mars and that early humans were influenced by Martians who resembled demonic imps. Residual psychic energy trapped in the ship’s hull begins to affect human minds, driving many to violence, including briefly, Quatermass himself. The energy build up generates a giant light-source Martian demon shape over London, causing great panic and rioting, until one of Quatermass’s colleagues sacrifices himself in spiking the electrical demon to the Earth with a crane. The film which I have seen many times, was already on when I arrived at a recent Fantastic Films festival, and followed by a panel with the lovely Julian Glover who appears as an army officer in the movie. Arthur Chappell