VAL GUEST DIRECTS HAMMER'S 'THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT'

Richard Wordsworth in QUARTERMASS XPERIMENT Year: 1955 Rates: ****

Very much like an astronaut's return episode of THE TWILIGHT ZONE four years before THE TWILIGHT ZONE, Hammer went from Noir to Sci-Fi with Val Guest's THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT before their groundbreaking Classic Monster outing THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN... 

And, right down to a little girl befriending a monstrous beast close to water, this XPERIMENT is basically James Whale's FRANKENSTEIN had he returned from a rocket ship sent up prematurely by our more impatient than mad scientist in title character Quatermass, played by American import Brian Donlevy, letting all the intrigue swirl around his usual mellow cadence... 

Brian Donlevy and Jack Warner in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

And the more animated British co-stars, primarily token constable Jack Warner, wind up chasing the human creature that inevitably turns into a bigger alien creature...

But the best scenes occur during the enigmatic buildup when the characters, and audience... as the rocket's impaled into the earth like an arrow, looking really cool for the time... aren't sure why of three astronauts only one returned in long-faced Hammer regular Richard Wordsworth who, beloved by an oblivious wife, is a lot more horrifying before he springs into town-trudging life... of the reanimated kind... in a nifty hybrid of Science-Fiction and body count Horror. 

Jane Asher channels the Frankenstein girl in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

Brian Donlevy as Quatermass in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

Margia Dean in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

Richard Wordsworth in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

Gordon Jackson in THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

The Monster from THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT

Val Guest directs THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT