Review of The Quatermass Conclusion (1979) by Mark%20 S — 17 Nov 2017

When I saw this story, upon broadcast, in 1979, I found it vaguely disappointing.

I had read an article in a newspaper beforehand that reminded us of the glory days of Quatermass, and I had seen the Hammer Film versions, with men changing into aliens and Martian grasshoppers controlling our ancestral minds.

So it was with eager anticipation that I looked forward to the ITV showing of this new story.

John Mills would be playing the professor and the threat was....

Well, I had no idea what the threat would be, other than that a radio telescope was involved, according to the pre-broadcast advertising and hype.

The first episode was gripping stuff. Astronauts on a space station are killed as the world watches on the television. But the world has turned into garbage and gone severely downhill. Brutality and violence seem to dominate.

Professor Quatermass is an old man now, looking for his missing granddaughter, while trying to solve this intriguing mystery.

Then it turns out that cosmic blasts are hitting the Earth and destroying hundreds of young people who have gathered at sacred sites.

All very intriguing!

As the story progressed, I kept waiting to see the aliens.

But this wasn't that kind of story.

It was disappointing to me as a younger viewer not to even ever see the llfeforms that were harvesting the human race.

It is only with the passing of years that I can now see that never seeing them was a masterstroke.

As Quatermass explains, the creatures causing all of this devastation are being human comprehension.

The movie SKYLINE, many years later would cover similar ground with the same bleakness of storytelling. I am sure that the makers of that film had seen this Quatermass.

The writer of Quatermass, Nigel Kneale is clearly venting on his disdain for the hippie movement here and even has a Charles Manson figure in the form of Kickalong as one of the characters.

John Mills is excellent as the Professor. Weary yet wise. Finding his way, haltingly to the logical solution - and a logical response to the threat.

Kneale was as disparaging of this work as all of his others. saying that there was miscasting - including Mills. But I can't see any problem myself.

Ralph Arliss as Kickalong is vicious and insane.

As for the other "Planet People" Kneale moaned that they should have been "dangerous dervishes" but were witless hippies in the televised version.

There is definitely a sense of Kneale bemoaning what the world around him has turned into and that only the older generation can save the day this time.

The ending is bleak, brutal, but hopeful. But there is no guarantee that what has happened will not repeat itself one day.

A very under-rated ending to the Quatermass saga. People sometimes seem to forget that there was a fourth story in the "trilogy".

But there is.

And it is a highly recommended one.

If the Quatermass trilogy were ever to be remade, which I am sure it will be one day for good or ill, then this part of the quadrilogy should not remain unacknowledged.