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Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

A bunch of half-wit Scottish soldiers are bumming around in an old pit while practicing how to use a gigameter. A horrific giant turd of radioactive underground goo monster appears topside at that exact moment and goes on a killing rampage, hungry for radioactive material. Dr. Royston, an expert in radioactive stuff, investigates said monster and devises a way to kill it.If this movie seems familiar it's because it is extremely similar to Quatermass II, which is odd because the script for X the Unknown was a recycled rejected Quatermass sequel. Also, it foreshadows the plot to the blob by a whole two years.The effects are passable and the occasional moment of atmosphere makes it worth it. The movie is set in Scotland but not one frame of it is shot there.There are worst 50s b-movies out there, many of them accidentally more entertaining. This one just coasts by on mediocrity.

Apparently this was supposed to be the fourth instalment of the Quatermass series and you can definitely see the influence here, British location, American scientist character in order to give it some transatlantic appeal, bumptious military types, disbelieving bureaucrats (Dr Beeching?) and young and handsome earnest assistants. This time however the threat does not come from outer space but in a neat twist from inner space, a prehistoric creature that feeds on radioactive energy and has now emerged as the development of nuclear power/weaponry has finally provided it with enough food source to return to the surface. A great concept which unfortunately the special effects can never live up to, I envisioned something more akin to Morbius' creature of the 'Id' from The Forbidden Planet. Speaking of which this must have been quite shocking in its' day, the sight of the creature's victims melting away must have been truly disturbing to a 50s audience. They also kill the kid which must have been taboo at the time. One thing that stuck in my craw a little was the nurse who was rendered mute after witnessing her lover's death, I half expected someone to exclaim 'Well of course she's hysterical, she's only a woman'. Underpinning this all is an early form of environmentalism, atomic energy had been sold to the masses as the great white hope but now people were beginning to have second thoughts as the grieving father's rant against the scientist illustrates. That the creature resembles an oil slick may also be a metaphor of sorts. The ending is somewhat underwhelming, the creatures defeat depending on a tyre getting out of a rut and you wonder if there wasn't supposed to be another scene before the titles run but all the same it's an interesting and entertaining film.

X: The Unknown from Hammer Films was intended to be a sequel to the film, The Quatermass Xperiment, but objections from the writer Nigel Kneale meant that the plot of the film was reworked.The original director was slated to be the noted American blacklisted Joseph Losey who started shooting the film but due to illness had to be replaced by Leslie Norman (Father of film critic Barry Norman.)This is an unpretentious film dealing with issues with nuclear radiation very much in vogue in the 1950s in horror and sci-fi films. The films also predates The Blob by a few years which is more campy.Soldiers in Scotland discover a bottomless crack in the ground with a mysterious source of radiation activity. An explosion kills a few of the soldiers from radiation burns. Soon several more people die of radiation burns.American actor Dean Jaggger plays Dr Royston from an Atomic Laboratory who hypothesises that a form of life from pre-history trapped in the crust of the Earth, tries to reach the surface every 50 years depending on the alignment of the sun and tidal waves in order to find food from radioactive sources.As the entity which is a glowing blob feeds on radiation its mass increases as it tries to make its way to nuclear plants to find more radiation.The film has a mix of good special effects especially with people melting and some ropey ones as the blob moves taking over the town or with fire explosions that look like a match going off. A lot of the horror is off camera but the film maintain its thrills.The acting from Dean Jagger and Leo McKern is straightforward. It has a fair amount of thrills such as a little girl being left behind in a church as the blob approaches or at the climax when a jeep gets stuck in the mud.

Considering it was shot in the 60s, it is pretty graphic for that time. Then again, Night of the living dead came a few years later and put a new level of gore out there. This one is tame obviously in todays time. It didn't age well in some departments. People are used to more by now. Some of the acting also seems very wooden.This British effort is still a good movie, that build the blueprint for other similar (and I guess more successful) movies. The acting is nice and the effects are pretty decent too, although you should be aware that most of the time it's more what you imagine, rather than what you actually see on screen. If you don't mind the age, try it. You might even like it (which shouldn't be a surprise)