X the Unknown

Back in the days when "Prince Valiant" still covered most of a page in the Sunday funnies, I first saw this wonderfully creepy SF sleeper. From the opening scenes of a stretch of the Scottish moors opening up under a British soldier's feet, I was hooked. I was very lucky that my parents didn't send me to bed then(although they did right in the middle of "From Hell It Came", but that's another story); I was resolved to catch it again just to get that creepy feeling! The ominous P.O.V. shots of the "X" monster shambling through the barren woods at night, the outrageous "melting" death by hard radiation of the medical tech in the X-ray room, Dean Jagger as Dr. Royston, describing his new invention that can (theoretically) speed up decay of radioactive materials without causing flare-ups(!) simply by leeching away its' energy, and the film's creepy, near-ambiguous ending ("We did destroy it...didn't we?") showed just what you could--and can!--still do with a small budget and respect for the material.

X the Unknown is an excellent sci fi movie from Hammer. It was made a year after The Quatermass Experiment.

Drilling at a remote location in the Scottish Highlands attracts a strange force from below. It turns out to be a blob like creature that feeds on radiation, which gets bigger as a result. After several people are killed by it including a young boy, a scientist finds a way to kill it and succeeds at the end.

This films stars American actor Dean Jagger and is joined by several familiar British stars: Leo McKern (The Day The Earth Caught Fire), Anthony Newly (Killers of Kilimanjaro), a young Frazer Hines (Dr Who, Emmerdale) and Hammer regular Michael Ripper (Curse of the Werewolf, The Mummy).

The movie has a very creepy score and location photography, a lot of which was shot at night.

This movie is a must if you are a fan of 1950's science fiction and Hammer.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.

X: The Unknown from Hammer Films was intended to be a sequel to the film, The Quatermass Xperiment. Objections from the writer Nigel Kneale meant that the plot of the film was reworked.

The original director was slated to be the noted American blacklisted Joseph Losey who started shooting the film but due to illness had to be replaced by Leslie Norman (Father of film critic Barry Norman.)

This is an unpretentious film dealing with issues with nuclear radiation very much in vogue in the 1950s in horror and sci-fi films. The films also predates The Blob by a few years which was more campy.

Soldiers in Scotland discover a bottomless crack in the ground with a mysterious source of radiation activity. An explosion kills a few of the soldiers from radiation burns. Soon several more people die of radiation burns.

American actor Dean Jagger plays Dr Royston from an Atomic Laboratory who hypothesized that a form of life from prehistory trapped in the crust of the Earth, tries to reach the surface every 50 years depending on the alignment of the sun and tidal waves in order to find food from radioactive sources.

As the entity, a glowing blob feeds on radiation its mass increases as it tries to make its way to nuclear plants to find more radiation.

The film has a mix of good special effects especially with people melting and some ropey ones as the blob moves taking over the town or with fire explosions that look like a match going off. A lot of the horror is off camera but the film maintain its thrills.

The acting from Dean Jagger and Leo McKern is straightforward. It has a fair amount of thrills such as a little girl being left behind in a church as the blob approaches or at the climax when a jeep gets stuck in the mud.

Hammer Films was known mostly for its horror outings like the Dracula, Frankenstein and Mummy films. It did, however, score well in the science fiction department with such hits as the Quatermass series, "The Lost Continent" and this movie.

The film was originally pitches as a potential sequel in the Quatermass series until author Nigel Kneale objected. Thus, the scientist became Alan Royston (played by Dean Jagger of "Twelve O'Clock High" fame) who worked at a nuclear plant instead of a rocket base and the location was moved to Scotland to avoid comparisons to Quatermass.

Ironically, the film still kept the same black & white photography, as well as the creepy string score.

The story involves radioactive mud (sounds silly unless you actually stayed awake during physical science class) that makes it way up to the surface of the earth every so often looking for new energy. Previous trips found nothing but fossil fuel. Now, however, nuclear energy is abundant. The race is on to not just figure out what is turning people into crispy critters, but how to stop something made of pure energy.

Dean Jagger as Royston is quite good and the exact opposite of Brian Donlevy's Quatermass. Leo McKern (of "The Prisoner") is on hand, as is the late British pop star and actor Anthony Newley as a soldier unfortunate enough to be on guard duty when X, the Unknown strikes.

The special effects are adequate, although British films still couldn't show explosions that didn't look like match heads flaring. The visual effects are really creepy, from radiation burns on a boy's chest to a doctor's face melting like wax to a security guard's body literally deflating like a balloon. The ending features a surprise, as well, leaving the viewer with the feeling that, although man appears to have triumphed again, something may still be amiss.

All in all, a good film, especially late on a Saturday night.

This early offering from the studio that would go on to become the greatest force horror would ever see lacks the vibrant colours and pseudo-Gothic style that would go on to epitomise their later output, but it retains the British charm and wit that Hammer became famous for. The film also succeeds in being entertaining, and that's what Hammer Horror has always done best. X the Unknown is your classic 50's B-movie, and it follows a seemingly bottomless crack that has opened up in the Earth. This is not all, as adding to the Earth's woes is the creatures that have come out of this pit; which are made of mud and feed on energy. For the time it was made, the effects certainly aren't bad and this was an obvious blueprint for several b-movie 'classics', including most notably; The Blob. Seeing the huge mud creature fumble over telephone lines and rooftops is very fun to watch, and is a good early indicator of the sort of film that Hammer studios would go on to mass-produce.

One thing that X the Unknown is notable for is the believability regarding the scientists researching the 'creature'. Too often in this sort of film, the scientists realise what is going on and everyone just accepts it, no matter how ridiculous it is; but here there's a bit of opposition and it's nice to see. The film remains interesting throughout thanks to the way that the plot is developed, and the fact that it doesn't go over the top with detail. It attacks the premise from lots of different angles, and seeing the army do it's best to thwart the creature is always amusing. The cast keeps the film afloat at all times, and the acting isn't bad at all; and certainly much better than I was expecting. Most of the cast are unknowns, but one standout is Hammer regular - Michael Ripper, who puts in a small appearance. X the Unknown isn't a brilliant film, and Hammer would go on to better this ten fold; but it's good for what it's worth, and I definitely recommend this movie to fans of classic 'B' cinema.