Quatermass

The Stone Ranger

Quatermass
aka Quatermass IV
aka The Quatermass Conclusion
Airdate: 24 October - 14 November 1979
Directed by Piers Haggard,
Network Region B Blu Ray
Four Episodes

Warning: The big spoiler is here.

“Huffity, puffity, Ringstone Round,
If you lose your hat it will never be found,
So pull your britches right up to your chin,
And fasten your cloak with a bright new pin,
And when you are ready, then we can begin,
Huffity, puffity, puff, puff!
Huffity, puffity, puff!”
Ringstone Round Nursery Rhyme from Quatermass


It had been 21 years since the last Quatermass serial, Quatermass And The Pit (reviewed by me here) had aired and 12 years since the last Quatermass movie, Quatermass And The Pit (reviewed by me here) had played at the cinema. So longer than all my life when, as an 11 year old, Quatermass was first shown on TV. Of course, I was a great admirer of the Quatermass movies from constant showings on television... the first and third ones always terrified me as a kid and I’m glad to say that this fourth adventure equally scared and haunted me.

Penned once again by the great Nigel Kneale, he’d tried to get ‘Quatermass IV’ produced by the BBC many years before but it fizzled out and I believe he didn’t work for them for a while after that (returning only after a few more decades for a Quatermass radio serial and another TV adaptation of the first Quatermass story). So this amazing writer defected to ITV, it seems to me... taking Quatermass with him. I don’t believe it was an accident that the producer of this show was the great Verity Lambert either.... another visionary of a sort.

This one takes place in what was then the UKs ‘near future’... and so this one is the serial that dates itself the most. A bleak Britain similar to the post-apocalyptic shambles of the Mad Max and other films... where roving gangs attack you on the street while the government breaks down and hides. It is in this environment that an ageing Quatermass, played by the acting legend who was John Mills, comes to London to take part in a TV broadcast, if he can make it to the studio before getting mugged by a roving gang. Fortunately, another guest going to the show, Joe Kapp, played by Simon MacCorkindale, rescues him but, during the broadcast about a new space project, the project is destroyed, sideswiped by an energy beam... by something which Quatermass and the others will have to find a way to defeat as soon as possible.

Has this got something to do with the pseudo-hippy (but definitely not peaceful) cult of youths called planet people? Quatermass is trying to find his granddaughter, who has run off to join them. But they go around following ley lines, chanting, smashing up scientific equipment and, as now starts to happen... and the sideswipe on the space station is a symptom of this... the youths get ‘taken’ at different times at various stone circles around the world. And also places which used to have stone circles at any rate (like Wembley Stadium... which is still standing in this fictional version of the near future). And when I say taken, they are mostly destroyed and not, as the planet people believe, taken to a new planet. Something is harvesting the youth of the human race, spilling the remains into the atmosphere (turning the sky green by episode four), extracting what it needs and then returning, every few thousand years. Quatermass believes the alien intelligence (this is just a machine) left markers on the earth to shoot the ‘collection beams’ to and ancient humans marked them as ‘bad places’ by building stone circles.

Okay, that’s a very stripped down summary but that’s the basic set up and it’s actually, despite having a lot of scenes of people just talking and exploring ideas, absolutely fascinating and, frankly, terrifying. Kneale is, as you would expect, not afraid to kill off regular characters and innocent bystanders (even Joe Kapp’s wife and two young kids get destroyed by the beam) and the whole thing moves along at a pace. John Mills is brilliant playing Quatermass and, watching the performance and the way it’s written now (on something like my fifth viewing after the original broadcast, the repeat broadcast, the VHS tape, the DVD and now the already extinct Blu Ray* from the equally extinct Network video company), I realise that he does, indeed, show that undercurrent of remorseless, ruthless zeal that was captured in some of the earlier portrayals of the character. Yes, he’s a kindly old man but he’s not above ‘using’ the lone survivor of one of the culls for study purposes and he takes each death in his stride... he is first and foremost the scientist who will stop at nothing to understand and, in this case, try to set a trap that, unfortunately for fans of the Quatermass stories, needs to be sprung from inside the trap itself.

It’s a remarkable serial, certainly not the best of the serials but neither is it the worst (and they’re all pretty darn good anyway). I remember the subtle, camera glimpses which didn’t dwell (possibly so the props wouldn’t lose their effect under scrutiny) of the half melted bodies of those that got caught in the alien beam and got ‘left behind’ (aka not totally destroyed). And there’s the flashy set piece where the surviving, half demented girl levitates from her hospital bed before promptly exploding. It’s all good stuff and, like Quatermass And The Pit, which mixed science fiction with old local legends, a definite entry into the folk horror genre... one of the best, I would say.

It also has a very eerie score which never saw the light of day on a commercial release, mores the pity, by Nic Rowley and Mark Wilkinson... a simple synthesiser score but one that really gets under the skin with its strange, haunting qualities. Also, if you want to see pop star Toyah as a planet person, machine gunned down by her own leader, then this is the show for you.

And of course there’s that great ending, the beam comes to the simulated bait of millions of youths (Quatermass and his team of geriatric scientists have come up with a synthesised signature of youth) and Quatermass is reunited with his granddaughter for a few seconds, but has a heart attack... so she helps him thump the button which explodes a nuclear bomb as the beam starts its work, taking them both with it. Not killing whatever alien intelligence has been harvesting the planet of the youth of society (who are drawn to the long buried marker points) but giving it a warning sting... the best he could hope for. So, yeah, that’s the end of Professor Bernard Quatermass, sacrificing himself for humanity (some might say it’s a play for redemption) in a nuclear bomb blast.

But not the end of the character completely...  a radio show bridging the first three serials and this one (starring Andrew Kier, from the movie version o the third serial) was later produced and also there was a live reboot of The Quatermass Experiment (Quatermass is the only TV incarnation of the character which wasn’t broadcast live, as it happens).

And that’s me done. I didn’t watch the cut down and added to international movie release version of this, this time around... The Quatermass Conclusion... but the bridging scenes shot at the same time do give that version a different flavour and, it’s worth watching at least once (but three and a bit hours of serial will always win out over an hour and a half truncation with this viewer, for sure).  Quatermass is a truly great serial and it’s just a shame Kneale didn’t write any further TV adventures of this character in his lifetime. But I’ll always, regularly revisit the ones we got because, well they’re just brilliant and their influence echoes down through the history of science fiction and horror to this day.

*Don’t worry, there’s a new Blu Ray edition of this from another company (with identical content, I think) coming out two weeks after the publication of this post.

Hammer House Of Horror

Blood And Circuses

Hammer House Of Horror
UK Airdate 1980
Carlton Blu Ray Zone B
Hammer House of Horror and its sequel series, Hammer House Of Mystery and Suspense, were pretty much the last hurrah for the once popular Hammer Studios up until they returned ‘under new management’, so to speak, in the 21st Century. I would have been 12 when I first saw these and am delighted to finally be able to catch up with them again now as, even at that young age, by the time I was half way through the series I pretty much gave up on it as a kid. Even then I recognised that the show was much more miss than hit but, rewatching it all these decades later, it kind of makes up in nostalgic value what it still lacks in quality. That being said, there are a few episodes which are actually not bad, towards the last third of the series but, alas, the majority are just... well, they’re okay.

The series has some nice direction from some of the many directors here and some pretty good performances but, I’ll go through it on an episode by episode basis here to give you just a quick taste of what they are like, rather than do a big overview of the show as a whole. The series is a portmanteau format of stand alone horror tales (although some do kind of go more into thriller territory rather than actual horror, it has to be said) and I had just two strong memories from the show which I was hoping I hadn’t imagined but... I’ll make those clear as I come to them.

So the first episode is called Witching Time and, although I didn’t realise it until I was quite a way through rewatching these, it’s actually one of the stronger episodes of the show. Now, there’s a lot of camera movement in this one and, out of all of them, this is one of the more stylistically pleasing of the bunch, with some nice framing showing different layers of rooms through various doorways (which was an old Roger Corman trick to try and add depth and production values to his shots on those old Edgar Allan Poe adaptations he used to work on), with the camera picking up various characters on different planes, or sections, of the shot. The episode stars Jon Finch, who played Jerry Cornelius in the movie adaptation of The Final Programme (reviewed here). Here he is playing a film score composer (not too many films or TV shows who choose that as a career option for their characters... I can only think of a couple off hand) who is haunted both by the concern that his wife is having an affair and, also, by a witch who has come forward to his time from the point where she was almost burned at the stake. The episode includes some nudity which was probably fairly bold for its time on television and this was presumably done because, frankly, the studio probably thought they could get away with these sort of shenanigans easier in the alloted time slot and they may help increase the ratings for the show.

Next comes the episode The Thirteenth Reunion, which has a journalist going undercover at a health farm and eventually uncovering a dark secret which, frankly, becomes very obvious from a very early stage in the proceedings (like 99.9% of these episodes, it has to be said). One of the things it gives us from a nostalgia point of view is a young James Cosmo (billed as James Cosmos on the end credits, for some reason) in a role which primarily has him hurling horrendous insults at a fat woman... which is kind of interesting and I can’t imagine the same actor as he is when I last saw him in The Hole In The Ground (reviewed here) being able to get away with this kind of behaviour today, within the current climate of political correctness. Another thing I thought was nice, considering that a number Hammer films had already started being shown on television at this point, was a sort of cross-promotion in that the episode contains dialogue saying... “I’ll bring some garlic. Dracula might try to turn us into the undead.”

The third episode is called Rude Awakening and the story of this one is very vivid in my head because it contains one of two memories of the show I’ve not forgotten over the years, which is a shot of the star Denholm Elliot being approached by a naked woman and making love to him in a phone box. I remember thinking the scene was fairly raunchy at the time but, alas, the years have not been kind to the scene and it looks fairly unexciting now. The story deals with a man who can’t wake up from a series of dreams which usually end with his dying in some way. Even as a lad I could see how this one would end but it’s nice to see Mr. Elliot in the role (just before his first involvement in the Indiana Jones movies). It also has him using expressions like “Up the apples, darling.” and one has to wonder what a younger audience who are unfamiliar with cockney rhyming slang would make of this these days (I’m pretty sure they would have had no problems back at the time this show was aired).

After a strange episode called Growing Pains, in which a family adopts a weird, ‘you just want to smack him’ kid after the accidental death of their own son, who is quite happy to be influenced by the ghostly instructions of said offspring, we have what is perhaps the most famous episode of the show and the one from which my other strongest memory of Hammer House of Horror comes from... The House That Bled To Death. For some reason I remembered a scene where a children’s birthday party is interrupted by bursting pipes which cover the whole room in Hammer’s trademark Kensington gore. The episode stars Nicholas Ball, who some of my readers may best remember from his turn in the title role of the TV show Hazel and, although I didn’t remember the so-called twist ending from when I was a young ‘un... I have to say it gets quite easy to figure it out fairly quickly and the episode was a bit of a disappointment, it has to be said. As was the sixth episode Charlie Boy, about a cursed voodoo fetish doll in which, pretty much the most creative moment was when the death of an antagonist early on in the proceedings as he is knifed, is crosscut with a lady having an orgasm.

Episode seven, Silent Scream, stars Hammer stalwart Peter Cushing as an ex-Nazi Prisoner of War Camp Officer and tells of his experiments with locking up and training captive animals... an experiment which he takes up a notch when a character played by a relatively young, curly headed Brian Cox is released from prison and ends up under the unwanted care of Mr. Cushing. This episode also demonstrates the relative cheapness of the production when a stray dog follows a character on screen when she is trying to sneak into a building and said dog has nothing obvious to do with the plot and is never seen from again.

The next story, Children Of The Full Moon, stars a husband and wife who end up stranded and stay at a large house which seems to be just populated with kids and a kind of ‘caretaker’ lady who is played by Diana Dors. Unfortunately, despite not being a badly made episode, the title totally gives away where they are going with this one and... yeah... well, with a title like that there’s really no surprise, is there?

Episode nine, Carpathian Eagle is probably my favourite of the episodes of the show... despite both making the similar mistake of revealing just what is going on from very early on in the episode as regards to being the identity of the killer and, also, not actually having a horror element to the episode. This one deals with the descendant of an Elisabeth Bathory type countess who, it is said, can also change into an eagle and who cuts her victims hearts out. Her modern day biographer played by Susanne Danielle is a pretty good character though and I was not used to Danielle being able to play a role as understated as she does it in many of the scenes here. It will come as no surprise to many that the character she plays may be said to be a... well... a method writer but it really didn’t spoil my appreciation of the story. We also have Valentine Dyall (remember him in shows like Callan and Raffles) playing a policeman and there’s even a young, pre-Remington Steele Pierce Brosnan playing one of the briefly seen victims. Another fleeting cameo is made by W. Morgan Sheppard, who would later play the principle villain in Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark (reviewed here). 

The next story, Guardians Of The Abyss is also very good and it’s very much in the same vein as a typical Dennis Wheatley supernatural thriller (not that many of Wheatley’s thrillers were of a supernatural bent but the few he did write in that style became very famous and, in terms of Hammer Studios, the source novels for two of their films). The tale features Paul Darrow in the cast (Avon from Blake’s Seven) and one of the actresses who I’ve missed seeing on the screen since I had a crush on her in the 1980s from the first series of C.A.T.S Eyes... Rosalyn Landor.

Visitor From The Grave, the next in the series, also stars a Blake’s Seven actor, this time Blake himself Gareth Thomas. It also stars Manimal actor Simon MacCorkindale in what is so obviously a ‘gaslighting’ tale with an equally obvious ending. 

Next up we have The Two Faces Of Evil which is, again, obvious in what its doing but is, I have to say, an exceptionally well shot and designed episode including some very cool compositions and some nicely chilling, paranoid POV shots... it’s easily the most sinister and creepy of all the episodes, despite having yet another end game you can see coming a mile off.

The very last story, The Mark Of Satan, was interesting to me because it includes a man who is being slowly driven insane by sinister events at a hospital and with his unhealthy worry about the number nine. I had a similar revelation about certain properties of factors of the number nine on a bus some years back so, yeah, I can sympathise. It’s really not a great episode, however and it’s not the best way to end the series, in all honesty.

One of the common things about this particular series is in the endings of all the episodes, before the reprise of the distinctive title music. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Hammer went through a stage where their moves ended in a certain, similar way. Although good was usually seen to be triumphing over evil, the endings were still quite bleak and suggested that the battle ground of the struggle between good and evil took a heavy toll on the side of the angels. Well, this series does it one better and, it has to be said, not one episode ends up well for any of the main protagonists. Either evil wins outright or both sides of the coin lose out equally... there are no bright rays of hope at the end of any of the episodes in this one. So, if you watch these all in close proximity to each other it is... I would say... a bit of a downer.

Nevertheless, if you want to see some charmingly told chillers with a whole host of easily recognisable, ‘can’t put a name to the face’ British character actors then Hammer House Of Horror is definitely one to watch and, I have to say, I was astonished by just how good this new Blu Ray transfer looks. It’s pretty obvious from this release that the episodes must have been shot on film stock as opposed to video because they look like they were just filmed yesterday. The crisp quality of the images and the deep colours are an absolute joy to look at and, I have to say, I really didn’t expect these things to have survived in such pristine shape. Network have done a really good job here (there are even a number of extras... the intentions of one of which is a little more questionable than the others) and they really deserve a lot of applause for the quality of this release. Definitely one to have for followers of Hammer Studios and lovers of British television in general. This is a very welcome addition to the TV shelf.