Quatermass 2

Returning from a meeting, Bernard Quatermass happens upon a young couple, fleeing from the town of Winnerden Flats. After the government has rejected his proposal for a moon colony, it's the last thing he needs and, so, when he gets back to his base he reacts angrily to his men using his high-tech, difficult to recalibrate, equipment to monitor a shower of what seem initially to be meteors, but aren't…

The trajectory of the meteors is plotted and they are discovered to be landing in the vicinity of Winnerden Flats, prompting Quatermss and his colleague Marsh (Bryan Forbes – later to direct The Stepford Wives) to go investigate. There, they discover a plant very like Quatermass's moon base, along with the "meteors" scattered all around.

Marsh picks up one of the objects. Suddenly it splits open, disgorging something onto his face and leaving a 'V' shaped wound. Then a detachment of guards from the complex arrive and drag Marsh off with them despite Quatermass's protestations.

Going to the settlement of construction workers that has grown up around the plant, Quatermass asks for the police only to be told that there aren't any – the plant polices itself…

Back in London Quatermass goes to seek the assistance of Inspector Lomax (John Longden). Acting on orders from higher up, Lomax is powerless to help beyond suggesting that Quatermass go see the opposition MP Broadhead (Tom Chatto), who has his suspicions about the plant, which is supposed to be conducting secret research into the manufacture of synthetic foodstuffs.

Quatermass goes to see Broadhead, who wonders why it is that nothing ever seems to come out of the plant, and is fortunate enough to visit on the very day when the MP's request to visit to the plant has finally been approved. When the PR man (John Van Eyssen) arrives it's surprisingly easy to convince him to let Quatermass go along as well…

At the plant Quatermass and Broadhead do their best to evade the PR man's attentions to sneak off and investigate. Belatedly he realises that Broadhead has disappeared and sounds the alarm, with Quatermass only just managing to escape before the bulkhead door closes. Looking around the plant for Broadhead, he suddenly hears a horrible noise and arrives just in time to see the MP staggering down from one of the giant metal domes, covered from head to foot in a corrosive black slime and barely able to explain what he saw before he dies…

When Quatermass tells Lomax what happened, the policeman is initially sceptical – a story on the front page of the newspaper suggests that Broadhead has gone abroad on a trade mission – but then, when his own superior proves also to have the 'V' shaped burn mark that is a sign of alien infection he realises that Quatermass is telling the truth and that the aliens, whatever they are, have infiltrated the British authorities to the highest levels.

So once again it is up to Quatermass and Lomax to save the world from an alien threat…

Quatermass 2 largely sticks to the formula established by its predecessor, The Quatermass Xperiment, with the most notable changes being John Longden in place of Jack Warner as Lomax and Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale sharing the writing credits with director Val Guest, adapting his own BBC TV script as he was no longer under contract to them.

Yet, in spite of Kneale's involvement, more than double the budget and a better performance from Donlevy this time round – or a script that's better tailored to his acting style – the film is less effective overall than its predecessor. Guest's documentary approach is hampered by an excess of unconvincing day-for-night shooting – one of the perennial weaknesses of Hammer films – and there is an excess of shoot outs where the bad guys seem chronically unable to hit anything.

The alien entities are also somewhat less convincing than the one in The Quatermass Experiment, with it remaining unclear to me how an amorphous gestalt made out of millions of little formless splats could manufacture the meteor pods in the first instance.

The conspiracy aspect of the film – which some commentators suggest may have influenced the X Files – remains relevant, while its always interesting to see how the sci-fi/fantasy approach allowed scope for film-makers to sneak what could easily be regarded as politically suspect content past the censor. (And here it's worth pointing out that the Quatermass films close companion piece X the Unknown was at one point slated to be directed by McCarthyism victim Joseph Losey.)

For many years Quatermass 2 was something of a lost film, trapped in rights limbo. Perhaps this explains the relatively poor quality of the film itself on this Region 2 DVD from DD. Nevertheless, the main problem is not that the print is scratchy or grainy – which one could excuse on a near 50 year old B-movi – more that the transfer too often seems to have greys where there should be blacks and has a lot of artefacting with very visible gradation between shades, both most noticeable in the day-for-night sequences.

The opening sequence is the worst of all, looking like something out of a film from the 1900s. Fair enough, in this case it is actually down to a lack of alternative material but at least DD ought to have let us know that the problem was due to circumstances beyond their control, as Anchor Bay did on their Region 1 release of the film.

The sound has a persistent hiss throughout.

Though the commentary track features contributions from both Kneale and Guest, it's something of a disappointment. There are several moments of silence and the men's comments – recorded separately and edited together – too often repeat one another without providing extra detail or contrasting perspectives. One area where they do have different things to say is, of course, the subject of Donlevy. Kneale feels he ruins the film, while Guest is more forgiving, saying that, though the actor might have liked a drink a little too much, he was always professional.

A nine minute interview with Guest, obviously drawn from the same session as yielded the commentary track tends, much like the interview on the Xperiment disc, to go over the same material, though there are some new factoids this time round, such as how Guest came to cast Vera Day, later to appear in Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels.

The package is completed by the US trailer for the film under its Enemy from Space title and a comprehensive 24-page booklet of "viewing notes" by Marcus Hearn (Guest's interviewer) and Jonathan Rigby.

Overall everything points to this being an attempt at a quality release, though the poor AV is a major let down.