Quatermass and the Pit (1967)

"You know, I think these are old friends we haven't seen for a time."

The third of Hammer's trilogy of adaptations of Kneale's hit TV series chronicling the exploits of the ill-fated Professor Bernard Quatermass. It may lack the dark, visionary qualities of Quatermass II (1958), it's streets ahead of its contemporaries thanks in no small part to its audacious and complex plot.

Brilliantly scripted by Kneale with a storyline of breathtaking scope and imagination, Quatermass and the Pit takes in alien invasion, demonic possession and the birth of many basic Christian precepts. The Martians' infrequent psychic manifestations whenever their subterranean lair has been disturbed (during the sinking of a well, for instance, and the construction of the original Hobbes Lane tube station) result in sightings of demons, the grasshopper creatures resembling traditional Christian images of the Devil. Kneale's hypothesis is that the Martians not only jump started the human race by artificially speeding up evolution, but indirectly created witchcraft, demonology, Satanism and a good percentage of Christian demon mythology! The implications are startling, that the Martians have been - either consciously or otherwise - moulding human culture and belief since we first fell out of the trees and stood upright, implanting race memories that have haunted us ever since.

Kneales' concise and witty screenplay is as peppered with subtleties and nuances as one might expect. Kneale is never content with merely telling a story, involving himself instead on creating a fully self-consistent scenario brimming with in-references and asides. The alien spacecraft, for instance, is at first misidentified as a 'Satan', a form of German secret weapon supposedly dropped on London during the war. Later, the inhabitants of the spaceship are found to be three-legged, a conscious reference to Wells' Martian invaders, perhaps. Kneale's cleverly demythologises the Christian legend of the Devil and offers a witty pseudo-'scientific' explanation for the occult. Like Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) made the following year, it suggests that Mankind's destiny is not in its own hands and that it never has been - that basically, we're little more than cattle in the eyes of a higher, inscrutable intelligence. And like Kubrick's film, Kneale's aliens truly are alien, enigmatic beings with a society and culture quite unlike our own.

Quatermass and the Pit is a staggering achievement, well directed by Hammer new-boy Baker, a veteran of TV's The Avengers. His handling of Kneale's remarkable ideas is spot on, particularly in the apocalyptic finale, a sequence that seems to have directly inspired much of Tobe Hooper's Lifeforce (1985). It's a film of great depth and intelligence, one that rewards repeated viewings. It combines Kneale's characteristic attacks on authority and pomposity with his humanitarian attitudes and wide ranging speculations on the nature of Man, evolution, the development of culture and the growth of religion.

A final Quatermass story, simply titled Quatermass (1978), was made for the ITV network in 1979 at the climax of which, the Professor was killed, laying down his life to save the Earth. A shortened, feature length version was made available under the title The Quatermass Conclusion.
KEVIN LYONS