This Hammer version of the 1953 television show features a hunt in London for the survivor of a rocket ship who is being transmuted from a human being into a monster capable of reproducing itself at such a rate that, in a short time, the whole nation could be destroyed.
The lone survivor, Victor Carroon (Richard Wordsworth), is met by his wife, Judith (Margia Dean) and the men who sent him on the scientific mission. While Victor is recognisable as the man who left the Earth a short while ago, there is a difference. It is this difference that strikes terror into all who behold him and sends his wife into the depths of despair.
Somewhere along his journey through space, he and his companions met with an unnameable experience that completely drained his companions of life and substance and injected him with a craving that transformed him into a thing to be shunned.
Some invisible force somehow got into the hermetically sealed rocket ship while it was in space and took possession of Victor’s body. It feeds on human blood and tissues of plant life too, transforming him into a monster – part animal, part plant.
London declares a state of emergency when the monster is discovered oozing around Westminster Abbey’s scaffolding.
There’s a replay of the famous Frankenstein scene as monster meets innocence, next to the Thames at Deptford. Jane Asher is the young girl with a doll, eight years before she would become Paul McCartney‘s girlfriend.
The story is well put together, the people are credible, and the performances are excellent.
Released in the US as The Creeping Unknown.
Professor Bernard Quatermass
Brian Donlevy Chief Inspector Lomax
Jack Warner Victor Carroon
Richard Wordsworth Judith Carroon
Margia Dean Rosemary ‘Rosie’ Rigley
Thora Hird TV producer
Gordon Jackson Dr Gordon Briscoe
David King-Wood Christie
Harold Lang Blake
Lionel Jeffries Marsh
Maurice Kaufmann Charles Green
Gron Davies Ludwig Reichenheim
Stanley van Beers Sergeant Bromley
Arthur Lovegrove Maggie
Margaret Anderson Maggie’s father
Henry Longhurst Best
John Wynn Chemist
Toke Townley Mrs Lomax
Jane Aird Sir Lionel Dean
Basil Dignam Little girl with doll
Jane Asher
