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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Peter Bradshaw

Quatermass 2 review – Hammer turns up the heat in enjoyable alien invader sequel

Permanently exasperated … Brian Donlevy in Quatermass 2.
Permanently exasperated … Brian Donlevy in Quatermass 2. Photograph: TCD/Prod.DB/Alamy

Here is the 1957 sequel to Hammer’s box office smash The Quatermass Xperiment from 1955; it is enjoyable, though the law of diminishing returns is coming into play. Like the first film, it is based on the original BBC drama (the second series, in fact) and Brian Donleavy is back as Quatermass himself: the brusque, unsmiling American rocket scientist working closely with the British government and permanently exasperated with them.

Once again, Quatermass finds himself at the centre of a deadly alien attempt to take over Planet Earth. While debating whether or not to fire a nuclear powered rocket up into space, Quatermass comes into contact with a woman whose boyfriend has been injured by what appear to be football-sized meteorites, which his white-coated assistants have been already tracking on their radar scopes. It appears that these sinister rocks are marking the skin of those humans unlucky enough to come into contact with them, the victims becoming brainwashed by the aliens.

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