<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

The Quatermass Trilogy comprises three original Quatermass dramas written by Nigel Kneale, which aired as a trilogy in the UK on BBC from 1953 through 1958, and as a series of Hammer films from 1955 through 1967. The BBC series began with The Quatermass Xperiment in 1953, followed by Quartermass II and Quatermass and the Pit. Rudolph Cartier produced and directed the BBC trilogy, which is not widely available at the present, but is often praised as better than the later film versions, which deviate from Kneale’s scripts—particularly Hammer’s Quatermass II, which The Overlook Film Encyclopedia claims may be the first numbered movie sequel. Kneale stated his unhappiness with the casting of Brian Donlevy as the intellectual scientist Quatermass.

A fourth Kneale script, The Quatermass Conclusion, aired on the BBC in 1979, directed by Piers Haggard and starring John Mills. No movie version has been made, but the series has been available.

Most people know the Quatermass series through the films. The first, The Quatermass Xperiment, known in the United States as both The Creeping Unknown and The Quatermass Experiment, 78 minutes, b&w, was directed by Val Guest. Anthony Hinds produced. It starred Brian Donlevy as Dr. Quatermass, and Margia Dean, Jack Warner, Richard Wordsworth, David King Wood, Harold Lang, and Lionel Jeffries. This film’s success altered Hammer’s plans to do a variety of other genres and it rushed more science fiction into production, such as the still scary X The Unknown in the following year (1956).

Spoiler Warning: Plot details and/or information about the ending follow. If you wish to enjoy the work first, stop reading here and return at another time.

Wordsworth plays the only surviving spaceman rescued from the crashed ship from man’s first foray into space, back when we still had very little idea what mysteries might lie outside our atmosphere.

Wordsworth won critical praise for his haunting portrayal of a man unable to stop his dissolution into the slimy space monster he eventually becomes before being trapped by Quatermass and others in a cathedral. Wordsworth’s zombie-like stare and lumbering gait are a space-age update of monsters from Caligari’s sleepwalker to Frankenstein's monster. One scene in the film is reminiscent of the encounter between Frankenstein’s monster and the little girl.

Quatermass II (also called The Enemy Within: William Franklyn, Tom Chatto, John Longden, Percey Herbert, Sidney James and Brian Forbes.

One of the darkest science fiction films of the 1950s, this movie pits Dr. Quatermass against alien invaders who take over human bodies and have already captured much of the British government. Aliens taking over human bodies was an idea in the air in the 1950s. It appears in much 1950s terror SF, from Invasion from Mars, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers to Robert A. Heinlein’s novel, The Puppet Masters.

Dr. Quatermass investigates a strange meteor shower and discovers a cordoned-off area with huge domes that look like his own moonbase life-support system. Inside, using human zombies, the aliens are preparing to alter Earth’s atmosphere to suit them. At one point, the aliens stuff a vent with human bodies to stop Quatermass from pumping air into their habitat. Quatermass eventually defeats the aliens, but the film leaves viewers with a lingering sense of paranoia.

Kneale disliked Quest’s changes to his script, which included eliminating a spaceship climax.

Hammer waited until 1967 to film Quartermass and the Pit, color, 97 minutes, the third and final film in the Quatermass series that began with The Quatermass Xperiment in 1955. Roy Ward Baker directed, Anthony Nelson Keys produced, Nigel Kneale wrote the script. It was the only one of the films to use Kneale's work without substantial rewriting.

Andrew Kier plays Quatermass, and the movie co-stars horror scream queen Barbara Shelly, along with James Donald, Julian Glover, Duncan Lamont, and Bryan Marshall.

Workers discover an ancient alien spaceship while digging a subway tunnel. Investigating, Quatermass finds dead insect creatures inside the ship, which itself spits electricity and affects people telepathically. Through telepathy, Quatermass learns the aliens are Martians who landed on ancient Earth and sped human evolution in order to use humans as slaves. The Martians resemble satanic creatures from human myth, and it’s suggested they are the real source of some human myths. The whole thing ends in a somewhat strained holocaust, with Quatermass once again saving the Earth from aliens—just barely.

Many critics thought this the best of the Quatermass trilogy, but others prefer Quatermass II, with its darker, 1950s paranoia.