{"id":18020,"date":"2025-10-20T21:00:38","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T01:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/?p=18020"},"modified":"2025-10-18T16:24:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-18T20:24:09","slug":"quatermass-and-the-pit-1967-roy-ward-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/archives\/18020","title":{"rendered":"Quatermass and the Pit (1967, Roy Ward Baker)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Quatermass<\/em> movies are like Knives Out<\/a><\/em>, not really sequels, just the continuing otherworldly adventures of Dr. Q – same studio a decade after the last one<\/a>, but everyone here is new except the writer. The doctor (Andrew Keir, a Hammer guy who tended to play priests and professors) is recruited by a military bomb squad and taken to subway station Hobbs End<\/a> (“hob was once a sort of nickname for the devil”) where ancient apeman skeletons and a mysterious vessel have been excavated. The film title evokes Poe<\/a>, but the pit is just a subway tunnel.<\/p>\n

Dr. Q and the Colonel<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Doing Science:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

After they uncover locust aliens who decompose into green goo when the air hits them, the military reluctantly admits this maybe isn’t a nazi bomb, and the doctor thinks Martian insects kidnapped abnormal prehumans and enlightened them. A worker goes down alone and a wind storm ensues, he comes prancing outside with his arms held out like a preemptive parody of Weapons<\/a><\/em>, not clear if he is alien-possessed or just British-terrified – remember, a British person can be driven mad by the smallest inconsistency. The assembled scientists and priests agree that whatever mystery they’ve uncovered, it is Evil.<\/p>\n

Roney poses with an artist’s rendering of a big-brained apeman:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Crystal mantis pods:<\/em>
\n<\/p>\n

Reporter Barbara Shelley (Village of the Damned<\/em>, The Gorgon<\/em>) is sensitive enough to see the invisible martians so they put a brainwave helmet on her and videotape the psychic visions from her “susceptible brain,” then Dr. Q screens the tape (actually some kids’ home movie of plastic mantises fighting on a rockpile) and tries to convince the government that humans have got alien-inherited genocidal tendencies (partly true). “People don’t believe nothing nowadays unless they’ve seen it on the telly.”<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Finally with the station full of TV crews and passersby the ship comes violently alive. The Colonel (Julian Glover, lately of Tar<\/a><\/em>) gets hypnotised by the commotion and melts, everyone else starts doing mob violence, until Q’s science-friend James Donald rides a construction crane to electrocute Mantis Satan and save the world (these movies usually<\/a> end with Dr. Q identifying some great evil then setting it on fire).<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My fifth Roy Ward Baker movie, and if I ever watch a sixth then I’ve officially got problems. Though in its best moments this had shades of Carpenter’s Prince of Darkness<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Quatermass movies are like Knives Out, not really sequels, just the continuing otherworldly adventures of Dr. Q – same studio a decade after the last one, but everyone here is new except the writer. The doctor (Andrew Keir, a Hammer guy who tended to play priests and professors) is recruited by a military bomb […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[410,712,102,946,318,40,181],"class_list":["post-18020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movie","tag-1960s","tag-aliens","tag-britain","tag-hammer-studio","tag-insects","tag-psychic","tag-sequel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18020"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18020\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18064,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18020\/revisions\/18064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deeperintomovies.net\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}