Legendary UK film studio Hammer continues to fascinate me. Though largely known for their horror output, that really only began in earnest with 1958’s Horror of Dracula. Prior to that, and continuing for some time after, the studio was more focused on science fiction. In 1955, the studio had a major success with their film of The Quatermass Xperiment. A year later, they tried to mine that vein again with X: the Unknown.
The titles aren’t the only similarities here. This could easily have been a sequel to the 1955 film. In fact, that is what it was originally intended to be, except writer Nigel Kneale wouldn’t let the producers use his character.
So, instead of Brian Donlevy, you get Dean Jagger as essentially the same character under a different name. As the head of an atomic research facility, Jagger is brought in by the government to help destroy an intelligent, murderous, radioactive goo that increases in size with each additional energy source it consumes.
If you have seen Quatermass and the original The Blob, just imagine a crossover between those works and you’ll have a rough idea of what’s in store here. Surprisingly, X was released two years before The Blob, which reverses which film I thought might have influenced the other.
The film opens on British soldiers in a training exercise in a quarry, where the goal is to find a planted radioactive item. They do find something, but not where the intended item had been buried. The earth quakes, fissures appear in the ground and up from the ground came a bubblin’ goo (death, that is, radioactive gold, blobby tea).
One aspect of the film which distinguishes it from similar fare of the time are some surprisingly frank approaches to the more gruesome elements. A child with radiation burns from an encounter with the goo will die in the hospital. I guess the hospital staff weren’t too overwhelmed with grief, as a doctor and nurse apparently decide almost immediately to get their freak on in the control room of the X-ray lab. Drawn to the radioactive material used in X-rays, the blob seeps into the room through a grate. The doctor unwisely goes to investigate, only to end up with his skin melting off his face. I was surprised by how much of that we see, in a solidly executed effect.
Other effects are decent but not exceptional. Typical of such films, miniatures are frequently employed, and I have a soft spot for those. I especially liked a bit where the goo is sucking power out of downed electric lines, which are animated to move like wriggling snakes. Unfortunately for me, there was a moment later where I could not suspect disbelief, where ridiculously large flames shoot out from the fissures in the quarry.
In general, this is an intelligent film, as I have come to expect from scripts penned by Jimmy Sangster. When asked how the creature can be stopped, Jagger asks rhetorically, “How do you kill mud?” Alas, some of the science is pretty dodgy, especially as concerns the lab Jagger maintains. He has been doing experiments with radiation, but he is only separated from it by a divider that appears to be just wood and plexiglass. As if that isn’t lacking in and of itself, it also doesn’t extend all the way across the room. I guess radiation can’t go around corners.
This blu-ray had an interesting commentary track from Ted Newsom, though he has a tendency to meander. Still, I gleaned more than a few interesting morsels of information, such as Jagger having the original director, Joseph Losey, fired. Losey, who had been blacklisted in the McCarthy hearings, had fled to England to find work. Jagger hated anybody perceived as sympathetic to Communists. No surprise, given the man had starred in the hysterical “red menace” flick My Son John.
X: the Unknown is required viewing for fans of Hammer and/or 1950’s science fiction. Still, something keeps it from being recommended for those who aren’t genre fans. It isn’t fair to compare deadly goo films from that era, but it is inevitable one will, and I have to declare The Blob as the winner.
Dir: Leslie Norman
Starring Dean Jagger, Leo McKern
Watched on Shout Factory blu-ray