Lovecraft, Adjective
The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
directed by Val Guest
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from Carnegie Library
A remarkably stylish and unified Hammer production, clearly influenced by The Thing from Another World but well worth including in any history of atmospheric, organic sci-fi horror. I can only assume that Hammer responded to their first success in a new genre by making sure such a cohesive, assured movie never got off the ground again. Brian Donlevy's Quatermass is a tough, exacting, and confident scientist, unwilling to brook the bad behavior of belligerent bureaucrats or small-minded cops. When he needs help, he isn't afraid to ask for it. When he sees an opportunity, he won't let a timid politician slow him down. A rocket ship crash lands in an inky hayfield, and Scotland Yard wants to know what happened to two missing astronauts, but Quatermass has his mind on the bigger picture: alien life.
The movie is at once a mystery, a procedural, a zombie film, and a supernatural manhunt with more than a few tricks (including a well-utilized zoo) from the Cat People playbook of shadows and nightwatchmen. Whatever it is that returns from the stars segues from confused to creepy - ghoulishly extraterrestrial - within moments. Efforts to discover the crew's whereabouts lead to a viewing of in-flight footage as modern as a reel from Paranormal Activity. Funny things start happening to the film stock, people begin to collapse. Strangeness sets in.
There's an incredible scene that begins as an homage to Frankenstein, with the mutated alien stumbling across a poor girl and her doll near a remote canal. She invites the creature to her imaginary tea; frightened, he retreats from her, and finally lashes out, striking the head from the doll and leaving it broken at the girl's feet. The camera follows as he flees, then returns to the scene for a long take of the lonely child staring bewildered at her ruined toy.
Stylistically, then, the director has his fingers in all kinds of pies. But they're gooey, grotesque, and monstrous delights, baked in eldritch ovens, nimbly navigated by a man of Ulster unafraid of Cthulhu's terrible, inevitable reprisals. Buck ninety-nine (and a year's worth of nightmares) a slice.
directed by Val Guest
rating: 4 out of 5 cravats
on VHS from Carnegie Library
A remarkably stylish and unified Hammer production, clearly influenced by The Thing from Another World but well worth including in any history of atmospheric, organic sci-fi horror. I can only assume that Hammer responded to their first success in a new genre by making sure such a cohesive, assured movie never got off the ground again. Brian Donlevy's Quatermass is a tough, exacting, and confident scientist, unwilling to brook the bad behavior of belligerent bureaucrats or small-minded cops. When he needs help, he isn't afraid to ask for it. When he sees an opportunity, he won't let a timid politician slow him down. A rocket ship crash lands in an inky hayfield, and Scotland Yard wants to know what happened to two missing astronauts, but Quatermass has his mind on the bigger picture: alien life.
The movie is at once a mystery, a procedural, a zombie film, and a supernatural manhunt with more than a few tricks (including a well-utilized zoo) from the Cat People playbook of shadows and nightwatchmen. Whatever it is that returns from the stars segues from confused to creepy - ghoulishly extraterrestrial - within moments. Efforts to discover the crew's whereabouts lead to a viewing of in-flight footage as modern as a reel from Paranormal Activity. Funny things start happening to the film stock, people begin to collapse. Strangeness sets in.
There's an incredible scene that begins as an homage to Frankenstein, with the mutated alien stumbling across a poor girl and her doll near a remote canal. She invites the creature to her imaginary tea; frightened, he retreats from her, and finally lashes out, striking the head from the doll and leaving it broken at the girl's feet. The camera follows as he flees, then returns to the scene for a long take of the lonely child staring bewildered at her ruined toy.
Stylistically, then, the director has his fingers in all kinds of pies. But they're gooey, grotesque, and monstrous delights, baked in eldritch ovens, nimbly navigated by a man of Ulster unafraid of Cthulhu's terrible, inevitable reprisals. Buck ninety-nine (and a year's worth of nightmares) a slice.
posted by NPK at 12:01 AM
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