Quatermass II

The first Quatermass BBC TV serial, 'The Quatermass Experiment', shown in 1953, was a phenomenon with five million people tuning in to watch the final episode.  This second series ran for six half-hour(ish) episodes in the prime 8pm Saturday slot from 22 October to 26 November and benefitted from the wider availability of televisions with some 9 million people watching the sixth episode.

Professor Bernard Quatermass (John Robinson), head of The British Experimental Rocket Group, reeling from the failure of his latest rocket tests becomes embroiled in an investigation into the  appearance of meteorites falling near to where the town of Winnerden Flats has been bulldozed and replaced with a heavily guarded chemical plant.

Like the later Hammer movie version 'Quatermass II' has long been considered the poor relation amongst the various productions, but its impact far outweighs the respect it's given especially in regard to how often shows like Doctor Who ('Spearhead From Space') mined it for ideas.  Bernard Quatermass has always been Nigel Kneale's avatar and in his layered allegorical script Kneale comments on post war (re)development, short sighted greed, the inexorable rise of technology, the dehumanising impact of industry and intractable bureaucracy.  

Broadcast live, with extra pre-filmed scenes edited in, it suffers from the problems you'd expect - stumbled over lines (especially from Robinson, a last minute replacement as the Professor following the death of Reginald Tate), and lots of emoting while staring enigmatically off camera and it's always funny watching the actors freeze in place at the end of each episode as the credits roll, but it's a glorious achievement that's often surprisingly brutal but shot through with Kneale's dark optimism for the power of science to save us whether we want it to or not.

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NEWS: The Quatermass Xperiment Ltd Collector's Edition

Nigel Kneale's magnificent science fiction classic 'The Quatermass Xperiment' is available for the first time in 4K UHD and Blu-ray on June 9th with pre-orders from 25th April from Hammer Films.

According to the website (and subject to possible change) the release includes...

• Five discs, including two UHD and three Blu-ray, with the Hammer content duplicated across both formats. English, French, Italian, Spanish, German subtitles on all versions of the film.
• The existing episodes from the original BBC television series. 
• Three iterations of The Quatermass Xperiment: the widescreen 1.66:1 UK Theatrical Version, the fullscreen 1.37:1 As-Filmed Version and the widescreen 1.85:1 US Theatrical Version re-titled The Creeping Unknown.
• A rigid inner box featuring new artwork by cult favourite artist Graham Humphreys. 
• A double sided poster of original one-sheets
• Eight act cards featuring facsimiles of the original UK cinema lobby cards.
• 180 page booklet featuring new and reprint articles and reproductions of original publicity. 
• 56-page comic featuring a reprint of the comic strip from legendary 1970s magazine The House of Hammer.

The discs feature:

• New commentary with actor and comedian Toby Hadoke, Nigel Kneale’s biographer Andy Murray and Wayne Kinsey, writer of numerous books on Hammer. Stephen R. Bissette, artist and film historian, filmmaker and Hammer expert Constantine Nasr and writer/producer Dr Steve Haberman plus archive 2003 commentary with director Val Guest and Hammer expert Marcus Hearn.
• The Legend of Nigel Kneale: The Creeping Unknown. Who was Nigel Kneale? Toby Hadoke investigates the man and his influence in part one of a brand-new two-part documentary.
• Unstoppable: Unleashing The Quatermass Xperiment. A close look at the making of The Quatermass Xperiment, with contributions from Jon Dear, Stephen Gallagher, Toby Hadoke, Wayne Kinsey, Andy Murray and Stephen Volk.
• Patient Zero. Award-winning actor and writer James Swanton, who played Carroon in the live, 70th anniversary production of The Quatermass Experiment, examines the life and career of Richard Wordsworth.
• Monstrous! Stephen R. Bissette talks briefly about Phil Leakey and the make-up effects used in the film, for a section trimmed from the audio commentary.
• The Eric Winstone Bandshow. A musical short from Hammer that played alongside The Quatermass Xperiment at the August 1955 UK premiere.
• The Kneale Tapes. A 2003 BBC documentary that explores the career of Nigel Kneale, arguably one of the most significant writers of the post-war generation.
• Cartier and Kneale in Conversation. From the 2005 BBC DVD. Writer Nigel Kneale and producer Rudolph Cartier reminisce about their work on the seminal Quatermass series.
• Making Demons. From the 2005 BBC DVD. An interview with Jack Kine and Bernard Wilkie, visual effects pioneers at the BBC.
• Val Guest 2000 interview from the Festival of Fantastic Films archive.
• Val Guest 2003 interview from original UK DVD release of The Quatermass Xperiment.
• Exhuming The Quatermass Xperiment. A look behind-the-scenes at how the new 4K restoration of The Quatermass Xperiment was made.
• Original trailers, foreign titles, Super 8 cut-down versions and the original BBFC censor cards for both The Quatermass Xperiment and The Eric Winstone Bandshow.
• Extensive image gallery of stills and publicity material, alongside tracks from James Bernard’s score.
• Quatermass and the Pit Omnibus Titles. From the 2005 BBC DVD. The bespoke titles used for the omnibus repeat edition of the third Quatermass TV series.
• TV Series Photo Gallery. From the 2005 BBC DVD. Rare photos of the original BBC productions.

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You Must Listen (audio drama)

In 1952, the year before he terrified the nation with the first Quatermass TV serial, Nigel Kneale wrote 'You Must Listen' for BBC Radio, a play exploring themes that he would return to again and again throughout the years, namely the intersecton between the supernatural and the scientific.  The original broadcast is lost but luckily Kneale retained the script and it was remade for BBC Radio 4 in 2023.

In 'You Must Listen' the installation of a phone line at the new offices of solicitor, Mr. Paley (Reece Shearsmith), is beset by problems when the voice a woman, nicknamed Passion Fruit (Caroline Catz), keeps being heard on the line.  As the problem continues and as Passion Fruit's monologue takes on a darker hue maintenance engineer Frank Wilson (Toby Jones) is called in to fix the problem.  

It's beautifully made and, like the best of the Kneale's work addresses timeless themes beyond the literal ghosts in the machine and it's wonderful to see this lost chapter in the work of one of the pillars of, what we humbly call, Wyrd Britain brought back to life.

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The Kneale Tapes

First shown on October 15th 2003 this episode of Timeshift explores (some of) the work of legendary screenwriter Nigel Kneale.

There're some serious omissions - 'Beasts', 'Murrain' - that need to be discussed in a future more comprehensive exploration of his work but with contributions from fans like Mark Gatiss, Jeremy Dyson, Kim Newman along with some great archive footage of Kneale and his wife, the writer and illustrator, Judith Kerr, it's an easy and affectionate tribute to one of the people who defined what we think of as Wyrd Britain.

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Circles of Stone: Weird Tales of Pagan Sites and Ancient Rites

Katy Soar (editor)

British Library Tales of the Weird

Standing stones, stone circles, tumps, barrows and ancient clearings still remain across the British Isles, and though their specific significance may be obscured by the passing of time, their strange allure and mysterious energy persist in our collective consciousness.
Assembled here in tribute to these relics of a lost age are accounts of terrifying spirits haunting Stonehenge itself, stories of awful fates for those who impose modernity on the sacred sites and grim tales in which unwitting trespassers into the eternal rites of pagan worship find themselves part of an enduring legacy of blood. To represent the breadth of the sub-genre, authors include Arthur Machen, Algernon Blackwood and Rosalie Muspratt alongside lesser-known writers from the periodicals and journals of the British Library collections.

It's been a little while since I dug into one of the Tales of the Weird series but this one had the perfect subject matter to lure me back.

The book opens oddly with an extract from the wonderful 'Ringstones' by Sarban, the pen name of British diplomat John W. Wall, a story I thoroughly enjoyed when I read it in the Tartarus Press edition a few years back and it doesn't deserve to be experienced in this diminished manner.

Through the rest of the book we are provided with the usual array of authors of note - Algernon Blackwood, E.F. Benson, Arthur Machen, H.R. Wakefield and Nigel Kneale  - and those who are unfamiliar.  There are a number of standouts.  The quintet metioned are all well represented with Wakefield's 'The First Sheaf' being a long time pulpy fun favourite. Whilst, of those lesser known, Frederick Cowles' 'Lisheen' proved to be a devilish read and Mary Williams' 'The Dark Land' was a poignant tale of the power of the land.

For the most part this is a solid read and lovers of a stone circle or a standing stone will find much to enjoy here and the collection has a number of highlights but it's odd beginning, a stuttering ending and some thematic repetition between the stories means I'm left with a slight feeling of incompleteness and I'd love to see the series revisit the topic in a more definitively wide ranging fashion. 

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Quatermass 2

Released by Hammer in 1957, 2 years after both the release of their first Quatermass movie and the showing of the original 6 episode TV series, Quatermass 2 (or II if you're feeling slightly Roman) is perhaps the least regarded of the three Hammer Q movies which I think is a real shame even if I do mostly share that opinion.

Treading similar ground to 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers', which was released in the intervening year, we find the Professor and the members of The British Experimental Rocket Group investigating a meteor shower that falls on the isolated location of Winnerden Flats where he finds an industrial complex eerily similar to his own proposed moon base staffed, it soon transpires, by people under the control of little alien blob things that had arrived in cute little rocket shaped meteors and which planned to transform themselves into very large alien blob things.

Compared to the first there's a notably bigger budget on display here and director Val Guest (who had also directed Xperiment) keeps the pace high but allows Kneale space to explore some of his favourite themes of totalitarianism, of indifference and incompetence amongst the British classes and the rejection of rational science characterised by the downtrodden but dogged Professor.

Returning to the role of Quatermass (the only actor to do so) Brian Donlevy plays him as a notably less abrasive character here than he was in Xperiment cowed perhaps by his failure with Victor Carroon but certainly by his dealings with British governmental bureaucracy.  As with his first appearance in the role Donlevy's performance is often clumsy and his delivery less than perfect a result no doubt of his alcoholism but he's supported by a very capable cast of recognisable character actors including Bryan Forbes, William Franklyn and Sid James who was also appearing at that time in his breakthrough TV role in Hancock's Half Hour whose presence lighten the load.

The film concludes with a finale that while undoubtedly spectacular with it's 200ft tall blob monsters is somewhat of a let down after the intrigues of the film and leaves something of a bitter aftertaste that it was just another monster movie but that aside it is a movie with a solid premise, reasonably well executed and with an intriguing message at it's core that perhaps deserves to be better regarded than it is.

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The Road

The Road is one of the lost television plays of Nigel Kneale. Originally filmed in 1963 for the BBC's First Night series no copies are known to exist, thanks to the corporations trigger-happy delete and reuse policies, with only the script to remind us of what was, The Road has long been a Holy Grail for Kneale fandom.  Whilst 'lost' recordings do still appear occasionally from the dim, dark recesses of production and distribution company vaults the chances of ever getting to see these missing shows are slim to say the least so it was with excited trepidation when, in 2018, news was received that a new version was in production with writer and comedian Toby Hadoke given the go-ahead by both the BBC and the Kneale estate to take a run at remodelling the script as a radio drama.  

Making only minor adjustments and assembling a small, strong cast Hadoke and director Charlotte Riches make a solid go of telling the story of a night in the woods in 1768 as amateur scientist Sir Timothy Hassall (Adrian Scarborough) and renowned philosopher Gideon Cobb (Mark Gatiss) along with Hassall's wife Lady Lavinia (Hattie Morahan - the daughter of the original lost play's director, Christopher Morahan), Cobb's educated slave Jethro (Colin McFarlane) and others investigate strange noises amongst the trees.

It's a convincing adaptation of a solid and fairly typical Kneale story that exists in that hinterland between horror and science fiction that he made his own and has similarities with his more famous works, The Stone Tape and Quatermass and the Pit.  As ever Kneale makes good use of his opportunities to comment on the vicissitudes of our times and his pessimistic outlook on the future.  The ending, whilst generally easy to anticipate, hits suitably hard and the whole thing is helped along by some uncovered, archive recordings from the BBC Radiophonic Workshop that had been used in the original play.

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The Witches

Whilst Nigel Kneale will always, thanks to the success of Quatermass, be most strongly remembered for his science fiction stories throughout his career he would regularly return to stories of a more supernatural bent where he could explore the intersection between the rational and the supernatural such as the brilliant 'Murrain', in episodes of his TV series 'Beasts' such as 'Baby' and, in 1966 for Hammer Studios, in 'The Witches' his adaptation of Norah Loft's novel 'The Devil's Own'.

Recovering from a breakdown following a traumatic incident with an annoyed witch doctor in Africa, Gwen Mayfield (Joan Fontaine) takes a job as headmistress at a small school in the village of Heddaby. There she encounters local bigwigs, writer Stephanie Bax (Kay Walsh) and her brother Alan (Alex McCowen) who has a penchant for dressing as a vicar because "...it gives me a sense of security." 

On the surface Heddaby seems idyllic if a little on the insular side but the discovery of a headless, pin stuck doll and the sudden illness of her star pupil Ronnie (a teenaged Martin Stephens - 'The Innocents' (UK / US) & 'Village of the Damned' (UK / US)) brings her to the conclusion that there's a witch at work in village potentially in the form of the sadistic cat whispering and grand-daughter mangling Granny Rigg (Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies).

Intended as a vehicle for reinvigorating Fontaine's flagging film career the movie's poor reception instead marked its end and it's not particularly surprising as despite having had a fairly glittering and Oscar winning career (for Alfred Hitchcock's 'Suspicion') she's a personable but largely ineffective lead here overshadowed by Walsh and most everyone else.  

For most of the movie director Cyril Frankel manages a convincing air of escalating unease but following a dramatic scene shift midway through the movie which could have and should have marked the beginning of the climax it all seems to somehow get away from him and the movie culminates in what is essentially an extended dance routine.  There are shades here of 'Night of the Eagle' and it uses much of the now familiar 'folk horror' template but 'The Witches' is little more than a flawed curio but entertaining in its own idiosyncratic way.

Buy it here - UK / US.

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Baby

In 'Baby', the standout episode from Nigel Kneale's 1976 series of bestial horror, 'Beasts', we find newly relocated and expectant couple, Josephine (Jane Wymark) and Peter Gilkes (Simon MacCorkindale - who would, 3 years later, also co-star in Kneale's final Quatermass serial) unearthing a jar containing the desiccated remains of some strange creature that had been hidden in the wall of their cottage. Both Josephine and her cat Muddy - and anyone with an ounce of sense - can feel something wrong with the whole set up but her abusive, selfish and distracted husband, too enamoured with his new life as a country vet to pay any attention to his wife's worry, is disdainful and careless of the whole thing.

We love everything Kneale here at Wyrd Britain and this is no exception.  All the classic Kneale tropes are in play in a story where, once more, urban science and rural supernatural find themselves at odds as poor Josephine, caught in the middle, slowly gets subsumed by her fears for herself and her baby and the strange events that surround her.  Kneale's script and John Nelson Burton's direction build the tension beautifully but the final reveal when it comes shows far too much and as a result is a bit of an anticlimax but like with many things it's the journey that makes the experience worthwhile.



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Tomato Cain and other stories

Nigel Kneale

This one has been up near the top of my list of books to track down for years NOW and to finally get my hands on a copy was a real treat.

The book holds 26 stories of which there were only two that I'd read before, the haunted house of 'Minuke' and the amphibious revenge of 'The Pond'.  I'd read enough reviews of the book to know that it was going to perhaps be a bit of a patchy read but I'm ever the optimist and so dived right in.  Turns out it's a bit of a patchy read.

There are some nicely effective tales here.  There are moments of light horror such as the two stories already mentioned and 'The Stocking', a ghost story or two ('Patter of Tiny Feet' & 'Peg'), a fun snippet of sci-fi ('The Calculation of M'Bambwe'), stories of madness ('Jeremy in the Wind'), illness ('The Photograph'), innocence ('A Lotus for Jamie') friendship ('The Excursion'), deceit ('Oh Mirror, Mirror') and death ('Zachary Crebbins Angel') to name just those stories that had the most impact.  There are many more that felt like filler.  All readable enough but with little about them that was either interesting or memorable'

I am though very glad to finally get to put a mental tick next to this one and that it had some very enjoyable moments - 'Jeremy in the Wind' and 'A Lotus for Jaime' in particular.  It wasn't all I hoped it would be but it was much more than I feared.

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The Stone Tape

In 1972 having returned to the BBC after a sojourn as a freelancer with companies such as Hammer Films, Nigel Kneale was offered the chance to write the Xmas play for broadcast on BBC Two.  Following the well trod tradition of a Xmas ghost story Kneale decided to meld his take on the genre with the science fiction with which he made his name.

His story concerns the efforts of a team of researchers attempting to develop a new recording technology in the haunted house in which they have set up shop using the theory that the very stones of the building have become imprinted with a 'recording' of the death of a young woman.

The play stars Michael Bryant and Jane Asher, was produced by former Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd (the man responsible for the Doctor regenerating) and directed by another former Hammer employee Peter Sasdy (director of Countess Dracula and Taste The Blood of Dracula).  The music and the, desperately unsettling, sounds for the show were created by Desmond Briscoe which marked a rare foray into the studio for the head of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop; Briscoe, incidentally, had in 1958 created the special sound for Kneale's original TV version of Quatermass and the Pit in one of the first projects worked on by the then newly established Workshop.

There are many gems in the Kneale catalogue and we've featured a few of them here on Wyrd Britain in the past and this one is right up there with the best of them.  Like 'Murrain' it concerns itself with those most Kneale of topics the clash between the supernatural and the scientific and like 'Quatermass and the Pit' and the late 70s 'Quatermass Conclusion' with the echoes of history imprinted on a location and it does both in the most terrifying manner.

The Stone Tape was recently revived for radio by the BBC in a production overseen by Peter Strickland (Berberian Sound Studio, The Duke of Burgundy) which we'll return to at a later date.  In the meantime though here's the original.

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.



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Murrain

Screened in 1975 as an episode of the, for the most part forgotten, ITV series 'Against the Crowd' and written by Wyrd Britain legend Nigel Kneale, 'Murrain' (an old term meaning a disease affecting animals) is a TV play exploring that most Kneale of topics the clash of science and the supernatural, the modern and the archaic, the logical and superstitious.

The story tells of a visit by veterinarian Alan Crich (David Simeon) to a tiny, rural village to investigate a mystery illness affecting the pigs belong to Mr. Beeley (played by James Bond's boss, Bernard Lee).  The poorly pigs aren't the only problem in the village with drought, and sickness amongst the villagers adding to their woes.  Spurning the scientific minded approach of the outsider vet the villagers have already decided on the cause of the murrain, local odd bod and suspected witch, Mrs. Clemson (Una Brandon-Jones).

For a show with a runtime of less than an hour it maintains a fairly leisurely pace filled with extended silences as Beeley's bumpkin workforce slowly process even the simplest of tasks and questions. The lack of soundtrack is an unexpected joy that allows ambient sounds to add to the growing air of bucolic menace.  The cast all give a fairly strong account of themselves with Brandon-Jones' lonely, persecuted and unhinged Mrs Clemson being the standout performance and the very downbeat ending leaves a satisfying ambiguity.

In discussions of Kneales' work 'Murrain', if mentioned at all, is often relegated to a footnote, eclipsed by it's more exuberant siblings like 'Quatermass', 'The Stone Tape' or 'Beasts', but sometimes there's gold in a footnote and I think that's the case here.  'Murrain' with the constraints of it's obviously limited budget makes for a tightly controlled and concentrated exploration of Kneale's interests bereft of the more overt science fiction and horror elements of later work such as 'Baby' and 'The Quatermass Conclusion' and is all the better for it.

Murrain is included in the box set of Kneale's series 'Beasts' which you can buy here - Beasts - The Complete Series [DVD] [1976] - or you can watch it below.



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A Wyrd Britain factoid

The new Sainsbury's Xmas advert (which I'm not going to link to) features the misadventures of a cat called Mog.

Mog was the star of a series of books written by Judith Kerr who was married to Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale.

Now how about a Xmas ad based on one of his characters.

Maybe the Victor Caroon alien rampaging through Tesco, or a giant Martian devil appearing out of the Hob(bs Lane)nobs in Morrisons or maybe an Asda full of Planet People being harvested.

The Fontana Book of Great Horror Stories

Christine Bernard
Fontana Books

I jumped on this book when I saw it in a cluttered second hand bookshop in Cheltenham because of the Nigel Kneale story that I hadn't read before; I'd have bought it anyway but that was the clincher.  There were a few other firsts in there too so let's take it one story at a time.

Starting things off is 'The Squaw' by Bram Stoker and it's tale of feline revenge as a rather stupid American tourist is given a medieval comeuppance by a particularly angry she-cat.  I've only ever read one Stoker tale before - 'The Judge's House' - which I really enjoyed and this one was fun also.  I really must get around to reading that copy of Dracula that's sitting on my bookshelf.

Next is only me second experience of Robert Aickman.  I'd managed to entirely miss him and now I've read him in two books in a row - 'Ringing the Changes' in '65 Great Tales of the Supernatural'.  'No Stronger Than a Flower' is a quietly odd little tale of newly weds that sees the wife relenting to her new husbands comments regarding her appearance in a most odd and unpleasant way.

Hugh Walpole

Hugh Walpole's excellent 'Tarnhelm' was one of three familiar stories here as a young boy is sent to stay with his two uncles only to discover that there's something quite unlikeable about one of them and he finds himself in serious danger.

The fourth story gives me my first chance to read an Agatha Christie story, 'The Gypsy' is a light but gratifying tale of premonition, fate and love wrapped up in a breakneck read that still manages to feel complete and satisfying.

Another anthology regular, Algernon Blackwood's 'A Case of  Eavesdropping', takes a young man to a boarding house where bumps (and blood) in the night are commonplace.

And so we arrive at the Nigel Kneale tale.  Kneale only ever published one non Quatermass book, a short story collection called 'Tomato Cain and Other Stories',  and it's from that his haunted house story 'Minuke' is the most anthologised so to get a chance to read another was a real treat.  'The Pond' is a short but sweet tale of revenge on a strange old taxidermist.

L.P. Hartley

Roald Dahl provides a tale that is straight out of his 'Tales of the Unexpected' style with a story that mixes a dead husband, his newly liberated wife and some gruesome post-mortem science with the promise of some well savoured revenge.

L.P. Hartley's 'The Two Vaynes' is by far the poorest story here with large plot holes in a fairly pointless plot of revenge for a pretty slight leading to revenge for a larger crime.

The Hartley story is followed by longest piece as Ray Bradbury's 'The Next in Line' tells of a young woman's descent into madness in a small Mexican town.  It's beautifully written but I found it to be quite unsatisfying with a very poor finale.  My preference in a ghostly or weird story is for a British setting - or at the furthest European - so the Bradbury was a step outside my happy place but still an enjoyable excursion as what Bradbury I've read in the past was always very readable as it, mostly, was here.

Frank Baker

Frank Baker's 'In The Steam Room' is notable only for it's narrators long list of possible deaths which do raise a smile but the story itself which sees a middle aged neurotic foresee a violent death inside a sauna is fairly innocuous.

The same can be said of 'The Interlopers' by Saki as two feuding Carpathian lords are trapped together in a deep forest giving them time to sort out their quarrel.

Of the final three stories one proved itself to be stylish but ultimately empty, the second to be slightly pointless and the final one to be an old favourite whose title I didn't recognise.

Elizabeth Bowen

Elizabeth Bowen's 'The Cat Jumps' is a haunted house story without any actual ghosts as the new owners and their party guests at a house famous for the gory murder committed there become obsessed and bewitched by it's reputation .  Ambrose Bierce's 'The Boarded Window' continues this theme with a remembrance of the reasons behind a sealed window in a deserted log cabin.

The book ends with Joan Aiken's lovely little twisted tale, 'Marmalade Wine' that finds a walker chancing across the country home of a retired surgeon only for things to go horribly awry.

As I've mentioned in previous reviews I do have a love for these old (this one is 1966) anthologies and this proved to be a most enjoyable one.  The selection is admirably light on ghostly goings on and heavy on supernatural revenge and retribution and is very much worth hunting down for anyone with a love of the weird.

The Woman in Black (1989)

  

Produced for ITV and broadcast on Christmas Eve 1989 this version of Susan Hill's novel was adapted for the screen by Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale.

The story tells of a junior solicitor, Arthur Kidd, and his journey to the town of Crythin Gifford in order to attend the funeral of local reclusive widow, Mrs. Drablow.  Once there he finds a village fearful of both her isolated home, Eel Marsh House, and of a mysterious black clad woman who Kidd keeps catching sight of.

Soon Kidd's duties necessitate his taking up residence in Eel Marsh where he discovers that the house's evil reputation is well deserved.

Director Herbert Wise has conjured a restrained and in many ways a somewhat old fashioned air of menace that he maintains throughout.  In this he is ably aided by both the script and some fine performances from his cast including Adrian Rawlins as Kidd (who would later play James (father of Harry) Potter), (Colditz Kommandant) Bernard Hepton as local bigwig Sam Toovey, Brit TV stalwart David Daker as pub landlord Josiah Freston and Pauline Moran (Poirot's Miss Lemon) as the titular Woman.

As I understand it this is, with some small changes, a mostly faithful adaptation of the novel and shows an admirable mastery of the form by Hill, Kneale and Wise who have produced a low key and deliciously eerie film that finds terror in disembodied sounds, the laughter of children, the superstition of villagers and the presence of an enigmatic figure.  It's a form of horror rarely seen these days outside of the BBCs Christmas ghost story adaptations of James' (and others) works and with it's Christmas Eve scheduling one can't help but think this was intended as a direct challenge to that series and a successful one at that.

I've not read the book or seen the more recent movie (starring Daniel Radcliffe) but I must admit I'm intrigued to do so in the case of the former, less so the latter, as what we have here is an adaptation that shows a story very much in the vein of M.R. James and the classic Victorian and Edwardian ghost story writers. 

(edit - since writing this I have indeed read the book.  My write up can be found here)

As a fan of both Kneale and of stories written and/or set in that era I have been long intrigued by this one and was very happy to discover that it was eminently watchable, downright spooky and a complete delight. 

Buy it here - UK / US .



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The Quatermass Conclusion

In 1979 TV (in the guise of original Doctor Who producer Verity Lambert) finally got around to letting Nigel Kneale loose on another Quatermass TV series.

It's set many years on from the three classic serials / movies and finds a retired Quatermass (John Mills) forced to return from his solitude in Scotland to search for his missing granddaughter.  He finds himself in a Britain he no longer recognises. One of anarchy, mob rule, violence, poverty and devastation.  The elderly are forced to hide and fend for themselves, rival gangs wage war in the streets and groups of young people - Planet People (sort of violent, punky, hippies) - roam the countryside driven to search for the sacred sites that will allow them to be transported to a better life on another planet.

Quatermass is a witness to one of these 'transportations' and redoubles his efforts to find his granddaughter, helped by astronomer Joe Kapp (a pre-Manimal Simon MacCorkindale) who, along his family and colleagues, operate a radio telescope in the country.  From there he finds himself drawn further and further into the fantastic events that are impacting on, not just the UK but, the whole planet.

At it's release the series was generally regarded as a bit of a flop but for me it has always been a most glorious addition to the good Professor's life.  John Mills portrayal is perhaps lacking in the gruff, professorial gravitas of his predecessors but his Quatermass is a broken man forced to confront a world he has little interest in or knowledge of having finally turned his back on the trials and travails of his previous existence.  Over the course of the series we see him somewhat regain his previous stature and his place as the pre-eminent scientist of the age.

Kneale is at his most bitter here.  It is savage in it's portrayal of a society in terminal decline; written at a time of huge social upheaval and political unrest in the UK and screened mere months after the UK election victory of the extremely right wing Conservative Party under Margaret Thatcher.  It is equally savage regarding the blind obedience of the Planet People to a violent and domineering leader, Kickalong (Ralph Arliss), and their willingness to march headlong and unheeding in his wake.  It is a lot more sympathetic to the plight of the older residents of this world whose 'Blitz Spirit' maintains them against the uncaring selfishness of the rest of society and eventually allows them to reclaim and redefine the world.

With it's melding of science fiction, folk horror and it's unerring belief in the power of science it touches on many familiar tropes of Kneale's work and is perhaps a little heavy handed in how it presents itself but for me it is the ending that the Quatermass story needed in order to bring his tale to a satisfying close and one I find myself returning to as often as I do any of the others.

So...

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!

Buy it here - UK / US - or watch it below.



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Ghostly Experiences

Susan Dickinson (editor)
Armada Lion

Apart from having just about the most glorious cover art - by Antony Maitland - of any book I've ever bought this collection of supernatural tales turned out to be great fun. There are some fabulous authors behind that cover, a few of whom I know well and a couple I'd been looking forward to checking out.

This collection was originally published as half of  much longer anthology called both 'The Restless Ghost' and 'The Usurping Ghost' which was subsequently split into this and a second anthology called 'Ghostly Encounters' - which I've just noticed I have on my shelf waiting it's turn.  It's  lovely discovery because if it's half as good as this one then it'll be a good ride.

Opening proceedings is 'Feel Free' by Alan Garner wherein a young artist finds himself physically in harmony with the creator of an ancient Greek dish.  It's beautifully executed and straight off the bat a very unusual, sympathetic and human take on the idea of a haunting.

Quatermass creator Nigel Kneale is up next with a haunted house tale, 'Minuke', which felt like a home counties version of 'Poltergeist' and is very much in the modern day rural horror vein that he explored in shows such as 'The Stone Tape' and 'The Murrain'.

'Witches Bone' by the one author in the book I'd not heard of, W. C. Dickinson, followed on with a slightly silly tale about a wishing bone and the mayhem it leaves in it's wake.  It was entertaining enough in a 'Tales of the Unexpected' sort of way.

H. R. Wakefield's 'Lucky's Grove' is a dark and bloodthirsty little tale about a Christmas tree inadvisably transplanted from a grove of trees with a dark reputation.

Continuing the rural horror is H. P. Lovecraft's, 'The Moon Bog', as two Americans attempts to clear an Irish marsh lets loose entities who are otherwise inclined.#

Sheridan Le Fanu (here billed as J. S. Lefanu) is represented by what is by far the weakest story in the collection, 'The White Cat of Drumgunniol', with it's story of a cat that foreshadows death for a particular family.  It's not bad, it's just a bit of cliche.

I'd never read any Robert Louis Stevenson before so his 'The Bottle Imp' came as a very nice surprise as a couple desperately try to rid themselves of a malign magical bottle.  It's wonderfully constructed and I was almost cheering for them by the end.

Closing the book was a real treat, Joan Aiken's, 'The Apple of Trouble'.  It's light, funny, inventive and fully silly as two resourceful children attempt to rid themselves of the apple from the Garden of Eden, a cantankerous uncle and the three Furies (or Erinyes) who follow the apple around and exact vengeance on whoever is unfortunate to own it.  It's a joyous read and by the time I was halfway through I'd already made the decision to track down more in the series.

In all it's a great little collection filled with variety and invention featuring some great writers and stories written over at least a century that feel entirely at home in each other's company. 

Quatermass and the Pit

If you were to ask me now which of the Quatermass is my favourite I don't think I'd be able to to chose between the full length TV series edit of the John Mills one and '...the Pit'.  In actual fact it'd be a close call between all of them but I think those two have the edge.

Adapted from the TV serial of the same name 'Quatermass and the Pit' is a 1967 Hammer movie with American actor Brian Donlevy stepping aside from the title role and Scotsman Andrew Keir taking up the mantle. 

The story finds Quatermass investigating a strange object found during excavations in a London tube station named Hobbs End where, with the help of paleontologist Dr Matthew Roney (James Donald) and around the hindering presence of Colonel Breen (Julian Glover), he uncovers an uncomfortable truth about humanity's past and unleashes a force that could ensure it has no future.

It's a classic piece of British sci-fi and Keir is perfectly cast as a gruff and exasperated Quatermass at odds with the beauraucrats around him and embroiled in events that are soon spiralling out of control.  It's beautifully constructed with the tension building right from the off until the electrifying climax. 

Buy it here - UK / US

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Halloween III: Season of the Witch

Of all the horror genres the one that has always interested me the least is the slasher genre.  The whole lone psychopath thing that dominated horror in the 80s and which is still rife with things like the Saw movies bores me to tears.  People have been telling me for years how great Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th and the (first) Halloween movies are but I just can't see it.  OK, the last one there has it's moments but generally they move me not.  I will however always be grateful to them for this one little oddity of an attempted reboot.

'Halloween III: The Season of the Witch' has absolutely nothing in common with any of the other Halloween movies.  Out goes Michael Myers and in his place we have factory owner Conal Cochran (Dan O'Herlihy) and his dastardly plan to celebrate the old Celtic festival of Samhain by melting children's heads inside masks containing a piece of...well, watch it and see.

Based on a first draft screenplay by one of the godfathers of Wyrd Britain, Nigel Kneale, this is by any definition a real piece of 80s horror schlock but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Kneale's original script was worked over by director Tommy Lee Wallace to make it more graphic but you can still feel much of Kneale's own personal brand of science fiction horror in the finished article.

Enjoy and Happy Halloween