Plot
Strange capsules with a suspicious aerodynamic shape rain from the sky, landing around a mysterious installation in rural England. The event, detected by a nearby lab’s radar equipment, intrigues Bernard Quatermass, the crusty director of the rocket project, and he sets out to inspect the area personally. What he finds is a top-secret, Area 51-style base guarded by aloof, black-clad, machine gun-wielding guards who don’t mess around when it comes to their “strict orders” to keep anyone from approaching the imposing complex of “steel pressure domes, hundreds of feet high“.
The official government line is that it’s a “project to make synthetic food”, but some disturbing circumstances convince Quatermass that the activities being carried out at the installation have little to do with that benign mission statement. Indeed, there’s a sinister scheme afoot, and the web of conspiracy reaches the highest levels of Her Majesty’s government.
With the help of a cynical police inspector, an alcoholic reporter, and a vigilant member of parliament, the prickly scientist sets out to uncover the truth, even at the risk of his own life, soon discovering that the weird meteorite fragments are none other than specially designed alien shells containing a dangerous lifeform able to infect a human host through “an immediate invasion of his entire nervous system. Something is implanted, an instinct, a blind compulsion to act for them“. Further, he learns the instillation actually serves to acclimatize these extraterrestrial invaders, who are now integrating into immense, slimy monsters “deadly to every living thing on Earth“.
Quatermass comes up with a bold plan to save the world: will it be enough?
There's scores of them coming down. What are they? Meteorites?
Critique
6.5Second of the four “Quatermass” films produced by British Hammer Films, “Quatermass 2” (aka “Enemy From Space” in North America) avails itself of Val Guest’s solid direction and Nigel Kneale’s excellent screenplay which emphasizes the horror element as much as the mystery component, giving rise to an unsettling milieu where murky plots and sinister machinations are the order of the day.
The resulting atmosphere is thus darker and more paranoid than that of “The Quatermass Xperiment” (1955), reinforcing the perception that deadly, ineffable events could assail us at any moment – in this regard, one can recognize numerous Lovecraftian vestiges. The titular scientist, being the only one to have intuited the gravity of the situation, embodies the creeping alarmism permeating the plot, and he comes to represent the sole bulwark capable of taking on the unknown menace (in that regard, Brian Donlevy is pitch-perfect in his portrayal of an exceedingly tense and impetuous Quatermass). Like much of 1950s sci-fi, this film can be interpreted as a product of the Cold War hysteria characterizing the post-WW II period, in which Britain was unsettled by the reality of a Soviet Union possessing nuclear weapons pointed their direction.
On a technical level, “Quatermass 2” demonstrates a level of care above and beyond that of its peers thanks to a refined cinematography – Gerald Gibbs’s noteworthy B/W photography – along with some rather ingenious special effects, among which it would be impossible to overlook the gurgling, shapeless blob from outer space.
The next chapter in the saga, for which we’ll have a full decade to wait, is the magnificent “Quatermass and the Pit” (1967) by Roy Ward Baker.
More Info
- Teleplay: "The Quatermass II" (1955) by Nigel Kneale
Quotes
- Marsh! Your face! There was something on your face! Are you alright? Let me take a look. You know for a moment, I could have sworn I saw something that looked like a big black bubble.
- There's scores of them coming down. What are they? Meteorites?
- It's a mass dropping alright.
Trivia
- The film establishes that the aliens’ planet of origin has an atmosphere containing high levels of methane. Further, it repeatedly mentions the presence of ammonia compounds, suggesting the possibility that they might originate on one of Saturn’s moons. On that basis, one could theorize that such creatures came from Titan (the sole satellite in our solar system possessing such characteristics), which brings to mind the invaders from “The Puppet Masters” (1951), penned by Robert A. Heinlein and brought to the big screen in Stuart Orme’s feature film of the same name (1994).
Products
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| Produktname | Preis | |
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| Nom du produit | Prix |
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| Quatermass II [Blu-ray] | |
| Quatermass 2 Limited Collector's Edition 4K UHD + Blu-Ray [Region A & B & C] | |
| Quatermass II |