Quatermass and the Pit

"Force more powerful than 1,000 H-Bombs unleashed to devastate earth! World in panic! Cities in flames! - An ancient Martian spaceship is unearthed in London, and proves to have powerful psychic effects on the people around.

Workers renovating the London Underground discover what they at first take to be an unexploded World War II bomb. On closer inspection it turns out to be a great deal more mysterious - a spaceship, millions of years old, bearing the fossilized bodies of dead aliens. Professor Quatermass, unconventional science expert, is brought in to bring to light this disturbing discovery, which turns out to have unforeseen effects on the local populace. One of the best of the science fiction films produced by Hammer in the 1960s, Quatermass and the Pit is a true sci-fi mindbender."

During the digging of a central line extension at Hobbs End, a fictional London underground station, some navvies find a skull and then the skeleton of a human being. Immediately the works are suspended and anthropologist, Dr. Mathew Roney is brought in to oversee an excavation of the area as the fossilised remains are an important find. With further digging Roney's team uncovers something which at first, is thought to be an unexploded WWII bomb.

This turn of events leads to Colonel Breen being called in to oversee the disposal of the suspected bomb accompanied by Prof. Bernard Quatermass. On further investigation Quatermass deduces that it is not in actual fact a WWII bomb but an alien spaceship that is thought to be around 5 million years old. This is far too radical for Col. Breen as he steadfastly holds his position that this is an unexploded bomb and dismisses Quatermass' observations.

As the investigation continues it is found that the underground station is situated in Hobbs Lane, (Hob is an old nickname for the devil) by Roney's assistant, Barbara Judd, and had the reputation in the past for being haunted by "Imps and Demons", so much so that the residents had moved out of their houses leaving them derelict. Looking through history books it is discovered that disturbances of the earth correlate with supernatural occurrences in the area. Somehow this alien craft is able to transmit 'evil' paranormal forces into the minds of the citizens in the area and its power is growing in strength!

Quatermass and the Pit, written by Nigel Kneale, started out as a low budget, black and white BBC series that aired in 1958, and out of the four Quatermass serials to be aired, the Pit is widely thought to be the best, most complicated and scary. Similar to '2001: A Space Odyssey' written by Arthur C. Clarke, Quatermass and the Pit covers human evolution and suggests that our ancestor's human intelligence was advanced by aliens. There are many topics included here but the main theme deals with how the stronger members of a group are compelled to destroy the weaker or different members in order to, as they see it, "preserve a fixed society", thereby mirroring racial tensions within Mankind.

Personally I liked Andrew Keir the best out of the three who played the lead role in the Quatermass movie versions. The varied subjects thrown at you kept you on your toes, the most interesting of which for me was the idea that mankind was experimented on and changed by alien intelligence. This sent chills down my spine as a kid along with the spiritual evil aspect that is always good for an extra creepy atmosphere. Although the movie produced by Hammer Productions only has the running time of just under an hour and a half whereas the original TV series has the running time of three hours, the Hammer version still retains the story very well indeed.

Reviewed: 17/11/06

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Memorabilia
Trivia

The Quatermass Home Page
The Quatermass Trilogy - A Controlled Paranoia

• Movies

The Quatermass Xperiment (1955)
Quatermass 2 (1957)
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

• Television

The Quatermass Experiment (1953)
Quatermass II (1955)
Quatermass and the Pit (1958)
The Quatermass Conclusion (1979)
The Quatermass Experiment (2005)
The Stone Tape (1972)
The Goon Show, The Scarlet Capsule aka Quatermess O.B.E. (2 February 1959)
The Tommyknockers (1993)