14 October: Quatermass and the Pit

 

At the end of Christian Nyby’s 1951 classic sci-fi-horror film The Thing from Another World, reporter Ned Scott says, “I bring you a warning: Everyone of you listening to my voice, tell the world, tell this to everybody wherever they are. Watch the skies. Everywhere. Keep looking. Keep watching the skies!” A good idea as he and a rag-tag collection of military and scientific minds have just managed to fend off a would-be invasion from space. But what good does watching the skies do when the threat is already on Earth? And it’s been here for over five million years just waiting to be dug up? And the would-be space invaders aren’t little green men from Mars...but you and me?

That is the premise behind my choice for today’s Cinematic Void 31 Days of Voidoween. The topic is “Aliens,” and I’ve chosen the 1953 BBC TV serial Quatermass and the Pit. Written by Nigel Kneale, it is the third in the series about the intrepid head of the British Experimental Rocket Group, Professor Bernard Quatermass. And it’s a doozy! Quatermass and the Pit is a beautifully constructed story. Kneale blends together folk tales, folk horror, evolutionary science, race memory, and science fiction hooptedoodle into a 6-part series that scared the pants off of the British television-viewing public.

Quatermass and the Pit is all about digging. The series opens with a construction dig happening at Hobbs Lane...or is that Hobs Lane...because if you dig through the history of the area, you’ll discover that Hob is the old name for Satan, and people throughout the history of Hobbs/Hobs Lane have been bedeviled by poltergeists and the like. The construction dig comes to a stop when workers pull human remains out of the ground. But these aren’t any human remains. Dr. Matthew Roney determines that they are of a human ancestor more than five million years old. That makes humanity far older than scientists had hitherto thought. But that is only the first surprise awaiting humanity in the dirt at Hobbs Lane.

The scientists soon unearth what they at first believe is an unexploded Nazi V-rocket...but the Germans had nothing to do with it. It isn’t a bomb at all. It’s a space ship. And inside are more of those ancient human ancestors...and the craft’s decidedly UNhuman owners and operators. With the help of Quatermass, Roney comes to the conclusion that the insect-like pilots are Martians, and the ape-like creatures in the ship -- OUR ancestors -- are an experiment of theirs. But what was the purpose of the experiment? And is the experiment over or is it on-going?

Quatermass and the Pit is sci-fi-horror of the highest quality. Kneale does such a fine job of bringing together so many different strands and weaving them into a complex tale. If you ever get the chance to see other shows based on his work, do yourself a favor and watch them. Everything the man set on paper is a wonder to behold. (Shameless self-promotion: I wrote a little something about “Murrain,” Kneale's episode of the British show Against the Crowd. It is a terrific slice of folk horror. You can read my take here.)

Once you’ve seen the Quatermass series, you’ll never hear Gustav Holst’s orchestral suite, The Planets, in the same way. It’s opening section “Mars, Bringer of War,” IS Quatermass. The drama of the music epitomizes Kneale’s scientist-hero’s battle with human bureaucracy and alien invasion.