What's this about?

Lately, it seems like many of the movies/shows are just a rehash or reboot of things that have already been done. And so I started to dive into the past. It's been fun, but I find myself losing track of which ones I’ve seen and whether or not I enjoyed them. Sometimes the titles themselves just don't tell me enough to remember.

I wouldn’t have voluntarily watched a lot of these movies when I was younger. It’s strange how interests change. That goes for what I read, too. I have another blog that explores books. I’m mostly reading older fiction and memoirs, and some of the books have led me to movies/shows and vice versa. In those cases, I may post the book review over here as well.

There will be spoilers, which is different than my book reviews. That’s mostly because I want to have enough information to help me remember what I’ve seen. I’m getting older. The brain doesn’t cooperate like it used to. What can I say? The gray hairs are catching up with me!

Sunday, May 5, 2024

Quatermass 2 - 1957

The second half of our double feature was a blind choice. That means we picked it by just reading the description. The other requirement is that neither of us has seen it before. With this being "2" we searched for "1," but Tubi didn't seem to have any other Quatermass movies.

Professor Quatermass (which I kept calling Quartermass) has just been told his moon base program has been trashed. In the meantime, bugs are crawling down the screens of their radar. I guess those were the little cocoons the aliens came in, but it looked like bugs. They've taken over the town of Winnerden Flats and built a replica of the professor's moon base where they're creating "food" so they can survive on our planet. If they come in contact with a human, they make sure to mark them with a handy "V" tattoo. You know - so we can tell who's who.

The professor makes it onto the base with a government man. After the man falls into the goo and dies, Quatermass gets a Scotland Yard man and a newspaperman and heads back to a nearby town. He incites a riot, probably not on purpose, but I appreciate the mob taking on gunned aliens with boards and fists. The domes are housing alien versions of Trash Heap from Fraggle Rock, and when they're blown up, the Heaps are free. I wondered why they didn't insta-die since oxygen was supposed to be poisonous, but whatever. The magic selective radiation rocket deflates them and kills the aliens that had possessed the humans in the area (well the ones that haven't been murdered anyway).

The movie was wild. Since I have no backstory on Quatermass, I had fun trying to figure out what in the world the whole TV series/movie trilogy thing was. I had to stare at the Wikipedia table for a while. I'm still confused. Anyway, a lot of this movie was weird, but the last part of it was great. It reminded me of the way I felt about Phantom of the Opera (1925). Was the end enough to make it a good movie? Oh, and Brand was the real hero in this one. RIP Brand. I think we need more Quatermass watches to make a decision.



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