Stars: John Mills, Simon MacCorkindale, Barbara Kellerman

Director: Piers Haggard

Summary: The four part television series and the feature film version of Quatermass which finds Britain trying to survive the collapse of civilization. A strange force in space destroys any crowd that gathers. Quatermass attempts to rescue the situation. Written by Nigel Kneale.

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John Mills stars as the eponymous Professor in 1979's Quatermass, the fourth, final and best of the celebrated television science fiction serials. The Professor's early adventures were 1950's TV productions, all made into cult Hammer films, including the excellent Quatermass and the Pit(1967). Here Quatermass, now an elderly scientist searching for his missing grand-daughter, finds himself facing a new alien nightmare in a convincingly bleak near-future Britain of urban decay, social collapse and unchecked violence.

Written by Nigel Kneale, as were all the Quatermass stories, this was an intelligent extrapolation of 1970's industrial-strife-ridden Britain, a continuation of the apocalyptic British SF tradition of John Wyndham (The Day of the Triffidswas serialised by the BBC two years later). Thanks to a generous budget sufficient to allow for an international theatrical version, the production values are impressively large-scale, and the naturalistic performances from a cast including Simon MacCorkindale, Barbara Kellerman and Brenda Fricker add greatly to the sense of reality. Best of all, John Mills brings tremendous class to an adventure which remains a rare example of serious, ideas-based adult TV SF. Director Piers Haggard (Pennies from Heaven) packs considerable tension and not a few scares into Kneale's epic canvas.

On the DVD: Quatermassis presented on three DVDs with two 50-minute episodes and perfunctory production notes on each of the first two discs. The 4:3 picture is good for a 1970's TV series, though there is some minor print damage. Sound is adequate two-channel mono. Disc 3 offers the 101-minute international theatrical version, called The Quatermass Conclusion. This version contains some slightly stronger, 15-rated material, and different credits. The disc also features an oddly presented but interesting 18-minute interview with Nigel Kneale which is centred on the original three Quatermass BBC serials. A 16-page booklet is informative and the packaging is among the most attractive to grace a DVD set thus far. --Gary S Dalkin

Main Language:	English
Region:	Region 2
Special Features:	History Of Quatermass Booklet, The Quatermass Serials, The Making Of The 1979 Version, Biographies Of Creator Nigel Kneale And John Mills Plus Other Actors, Exclusive Nigel Kneale Interview, Production Notes, Episode Information, Episode And Scene Selection, Anim
Release Date:	April 7, 2003
Runtime:	327 minutes
Certification:
Catalogue Number:	Q B O X D V D 01
Keywords:	Box, General, Fiction, Set, Science, Chapters, Quatermass, Conclusion, Tv, Horror, Sci, Fi
Genre:	Science Fiction