Les Monstres de l'espace

The picture concerns about the strange deeds into a London underground . There find a Martian aircraft which probes the humanity is created by a superior civilization . Then arrive Quatermass (Andrew Keir) , an official army (Julian Glover) and two obstinate scientists (James Donald and Barbara Shelley) , all of them discover fantastic events . The plot is developed for continuous discovery , leading a spooky and astounding finale.

The movie is an outstanding adaptation from a TV serial exhibited in BBC (1958-59) written by Nigel Kneagle . As protagonist turns up Andrew Keir substituting to Brian Donlevy starring in ¨The Quatermass experiment¨ and ¨Quatermass II¨ , both of them directed by Val Guest , besides John Mills starred the final chapter titled the ¨Conclusion Quatermass¨ directed by Piers Haggard . This 1967 film is one of the greatest British science fiction films and the best of Quatermass trilogy . The great climax film is , of course , the final confrontation between the starring and the weird entity . In the picture appears the usual Hammer technicians and artistic team as cameraman Arthur Grant creating a riveting and colorful cinematography , Bernard Robinson making an awesome production design and ordinary musical conductor Philip Martell . The film is well produced by Anthony Nelson and magnificently directed by Roy Ward Baker . The flick will appeal to science fiction movie enthusiasts and Hammer fans . Rating : Above average and well worth watching .

I remember seeing this movie as a kid in Compton on my small black and white TV. The eerie holographic image of the Martian Devil's Head floating over the wreckage of London stayed in my mind, and led to more than a few nightmares. Still, I can't deny this film's pull after the decades, and it is a Guilty Pleasure that I often pull from the DVD cabinet. And no, I'm not a Quatermass Fan.

Even today, despite the film's fair degree of dating, I am impressed and staggered by the conceptual genius of Nigel Kneale's script, and Roy Ward Baker's ability to mesh sci-fi and "Spiritual Evil" (as a disturbed Parson notes) in a product that is well removed from the standard Hammer fare. There is a real subversive pull to this little film, which piles on concepts such as Race Memory, Evolution, Conformity, Alien Colonization, Belief in "The Devil" and the occult, Ethnic Cleansing, Human Supremacy, and the arrogance, stupidity and mendacity of politicians and the military. On some level, it's hard not to be awed by the film's ambitions..

(****SOME PLOT SPOILERS BELOW****)

The plot: progress on The Hobb's End Underground Transport comes to a halt when the subway workers unearth what appear to be primitive apelike skeletons and a mysterious "craft" which is initially believed to be an unexploded bomb left over from The War. Professor Bernard Quatermass (Andrew Keir), at odds with the government over the planned military use of his "rocket group" investigates, with the assistance of two paleontologists, Dr. Mathew Roney (James Donald), and Dr. Barbara Judd (Barbara Shelley). Disturbed and intrigued that the skeletons were found IN the ship and appear to date nearly 5 millions years, and that the largely vacated Hobb's End Lane area has been a site for of "demoniac activity," for centuries.

Given the film's rather meager resources, it is hard not be impressed by the story, acting, and general mood of growing apocalyptic. In the usual Hammer film, the nemesis is clearly the supernatural: in these movies, we fear violent death at the hands of vampires, werewolves, ghouls, etc. The horror on hand in this movie, which doesn't show itself in all its preening glory until the end, is far more insidious and devastating. The Evil that threatens human civilization itself, questions our Evolution, Intellect, and Spiritual Beliefs. Because The Evil in Quatermass is, in essence, Dead from the get-go, it can't be easily faced, conquered, disputed with and laid to rest. The evil is, in fact, rooted firmly in the collective Mind of Man, and given the right "trigger", is able to manifest itself on a staggering, all-encompassing level. It shows itself in small clues: the scratches on the walls in the houses on Hobb's Lane, old local newspaper pieces and local history tomes, skulls, pentagrams on spaceship hulls, etc.: but when it finally does arrive, it upends Mankind's very identity, and the damage that is done, doesn't look like it can be repaired or explained away. Even when the "Pit's" alien ghosts are defeated, the victory seems pretty hollow.

Keir, whom I remember from such films as "Fall of The Roman Empire," and "Dracula Has Risen From The Grave", plays his role with gruff conviction ("I never had a career, I just had work!" He grouses to his unwanted colleague Colonel Breen), and I have always liked the amiable Donald, who was terrific as the most sane character in one of my favorite movies, "Bridge on The River Kwai.". The two are well-matched by the excellent Barbara Shelley, who brings a fair degree of wild sensuality to her role when she's possessed by an alien race memory. Still, I have to give some major plaudits to Glover, whose character is such a smug and supercilious ass, that it's fitting when you do see him kneel in lethal supplication to The Truth he has been dismissing throughout the movie. The occasional moments of dry as well as bumptious British humor are truly appreciated, offering occasional respite from the overall sense of rising darkness.

Many have pointed out that "Quatermass and The Pit", in its theme of alien intervention in human evolution is the dark flip-side to "2001," and that is certainly true. I also saw echoes of this film in Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985), especially in the climactic scenes of London's devastation at the hands of its "space vampires.". You could also throw in Stephen King's novel, "The Tommyknockers". Even so, I was and still am, spellbound by the movie's novelty, its thought-intriguing meld of science-fiction and horror, the juxtaposition of skulls and sleek extraterrestrial metal, the Martian spaceship standing in quite nicely for the proverbial Haunted House. The movie does have its share of gaffes: the "alien locust" carcasses should have been seen as little as possible, and a scene where a soldier goes bonkers after seeing an "apparition of a small, hideous dwarf" inside the ship, lacks the timing to pull it off.

Still, given its execution and drive, the movie's coda of Keir and Shelley leaning wearily against the rubble of London as the city burns in the background, nicely sums up what horror films should be about: Things Are Not Okay, and may never be Okay anytime in the near future.

This is an excellent Sci-fi movie that holds up after 32 years. It does have that Hammer-films look so unique to the others made around that time. Some of the actors are recognizable from the Christopher Lee Dracula series. I saw this movie when I was very young and it haunted me through-out my adult life. I didn't even realize it, until I saw it again recently. You see, eveytime I would see one of those huge construction cranes, I would get this foreboding, disturbing feeling I couldn't get a grasp on. I would stare at the crane, trying to figure out why it disturbed my so. It didn't click into place until I saw the movie again.

This film is not your usual sci-fi monster from the deep or outer space but a story based on comprehensible logic - the suggestion that the human mind and it's psychic and sixth sense qualities was the result of alien intervention with our ancestral primates millions of years ago. Andrew Keir plays a fine role as the tweedy dressed sometimes gruff gentleman professor, Bernard Quatermass who teams up with equally amiable James Donald as Dr.Mathew Roney and his attractive female assistant Barbara Shelley as Barbara Judd to solve the riddle of a strange craft and several ape like skeletons unearthed during the reconstruction of an underground London railway station. At first thought to be an unexploded second world war missile an Army demolition team is brought in to disarm it, led by the bombastic single minded military thinking Colonel Breen played by Julian Glover who scoffs at the theories of the two scientists that this could be anything more than a German V weapon. The finding of large insect like creatures preserved within the hull of the craft and an analysis of their physical attributes leads Quatermass and Roney to conclude that they are Martians who along with their ape like passengers were killed as a result of a crash landing five million years beforehand. Quatermass also speculates that the apes had been previously taken from Earth to Mars and altered in order to give them Martian thinking characteristics which were then inherited by their human descendants. Breen dismisses the insect creatures as fakes and convinces his government superiors that the missile is safe, against the advice of Quatermass, Roney and Judd who have already discovered sinister awakenings within the craft after a workman dismantling his drill therein is seized upon by an invisible propelling force along with terrifying mental images. When the public and press are admitted to the site the craft comes to life generating a ghostly devil looking apparition, along with the now mind affected local population banding into groups and unleashing a killing spree on their own kind. Quatermass and Roney must now pool their scientific expertise to neutralize the menace and restore order. Nigel Kneale's compelling screenplay is sheer brilliance and gives this film a distinct and special uniqueness in the world of science fiction. A must see for the serious minded movie watcher.

Roy Ward Baker directed this belated(10 years later) third entry in the Quatermass saga, this time casting a proper British actor to play British rocket group scientist Bernard Quatermass, called in to investigate a skeleton found near a presumed undetonated German bomb in the London underground being excavated for a new subway line, that turns out to be an alien spacecraft with Martian insect-humanoids aboard. James Donald plays Professor Roney, in charge of the dig, and one of the few unaffected by the Martian attempt to use their human descendants to purge all those not part of the hive... Intelligent, ambitious, and audacious science fiction story may have some off-putting elements, and primitive model F/X, but remains a prime example of how to do this kind of story right. Based on the Nigel Kneale miniseries, this is by far the best of the trilogy.