Very excited because everyone seems to love this one. From the start I do personally love this first shot after an amazing title card, the pillarboxing as a cop walks onto a dingy street, the bars pulling back, following him around the corner with another turn as he looks in...and it only gets better with the muck and the skeletons.
Oh, there's a new Quatermass. I loved the last one, but as far as I know people like this Keir guy, so I'm optimistic about it. And immediately, I do love this man, that's for sure.
Alone out of all of these, the plot feels like they looked into the future and saw somebody's extremely cool Call of Cthulhu adventure. In a series which is already deeply inflected with Lovecraftian themes and elements, it reaches new heights here.
The Latin translation detail of having to flip back and forth between pages to continue translating! I couldn't translate that fast, especially now that I've been out of practice for years on end, but they used to build 'em different.
I feel like the final act, which unites a man of science and a man of faith, must have been influential on Carpenter's incredible Prince of Darkness. Obviously not the only element which clearly seems to have impacted him, though!
It's kind of incredible how much more pessimistic this is than the second film.
Final shot is sort of an inversion of the first shot. For once, Quatermass has no line at the end of the film. Just quiet, desperate grief. There's no doubt in my mind that Keir was born to play Quatermass, and no doubt in my mind that this is my favorite of the Hammer Horror trilogy. Deeply ironic, troubled by fascism and conformism, motivated by a belief in both the powers of science and the ability of unscientific men to destroy our society, overwhelming with the sense of fear that maybe the worst impulses of the species are impossible to overcome.
Of course, the best moments of this film look incredible, too. I love the special effects personally, but there are a lot of really astonishing shots of the ongoing disaster at the end.
"Well, of course, they form a pentacle. One of the cabalistic signs used in ancient magic!"
Very excited because everyone seems to love this one. From the start I do personally love this first shot after an amazing title card, the pillarboxing as a cop walks onto a dingy street, the bars pulling back, following him around the corner with another turn as he looks in...and it only gets better with the muck and the skeletons.
Oh, there's a new Quatermass. I loved the last one, but as far as I know people like this Keir guy, so I'm optimistic about it. And immediately, I do love this man, that's for sure.
Alone out of all of these, the plot feels like they looked into the future and saw somebody's extremely cool Call of Cthulhu adventure. In a series which is already deeply inflected with Lovecraftian themes and elements, it reaches new heights here.
The Latin translation detail of having to flip back and forth between pages to continue translating! I couldn't translate that fast, especially now that I've been out of practice for years on end, but they used to build 'em different.
I feel like the final act, which unites a man of science and a man of faith, must have been influential on Carpenter's incredible Prince of Darkness. Obviously not the only element which clearly seems to have impacted him, though!
It's kind of incredible how much more pessimistic this is than the second film.
Final shot is sort of an inversion of the first shot. For once, Quatermass has no line at the end of the film. Just quiet, desperate grief. There's no doubt in my mind that Keir was born to play Quatermass, and no doubt in my mind that this is my favorite of the Hammer Horror trilogy. Deeply ironic, troubled by fascism and conformism, motivated by a belief in both the powers of science and the ability of unscientific men to destroy our society, overwhelming with the sense of fear that maybe the worst impulses of the species are impossible to overcome.
Of course, the best moments of this film look incredible, too. I love the special effects personally, but there are a lot of really astonishing shots of the ongoing disaster at the end.
"Well, of course, they form a pentacle. One of the cabalistic signs used in ancient magic!"
