‘It’s on its way for the biggest meal of its life...’
Before Hammer Film Productions became a behemoth in the horror industry, it started with weird sci-fi films suffused with anxiety about the atomic age and featuring lots of posh British people arguing in rooms. The Quatermass Xperiment kicked things off for the burgeoning production studio, and when that became a massive hit, they decided to simply do it all again with a sequel. Unfortunately, Nigel Neale, the curmudgeonly genius behind Quatarmass, refused Hammer permission to reuse the character, and so X the Unknown was released as its own entity. Despite being a pale imitation of Quatarmass, X the Unknown is still probably better than it has any right to be…
After an explosion in a deserted field in Scotland, some kind of insidious entity is unleashed that appears to cause intense radiation sickness to take hold of anyone unfortunate enough to encounter it. Dr Adam Royston (Dean Jagger) and ‘Mac’ McGill (Leo McKern), a security advisor for the UK Atomic Energy Commission, are brought in to investigate.
This is one of those films that is so difficult to review because there really isn’t that much to say about it. The script is sharper and funnier than it has any right to be. The performances are strong – nobody is camping it up. This is very much a serious film despite the goofy title (it was paired with the French classic Les Diaboliques upon release). The effects are sometimes convincing, sometimes not (the reveal of the big bad at the end is regretably very dated by today’s standards). But beyond that, this is quite simply a serviceable atomic sci-fi film that offers a mildly interesting insight into the dawn of Hammer Film Productions.
X the Unknown is currently showing for free on Amazon Prime Video if anyone is interested, but honestly, I would advise watching any of the Quatermass films instead. This one is a pale imitation.
