The Quatermass Xperiment

One man returns from a three-person crew sent into space, and he cannot speak; there is something in his body and it is spreading. Professor Quatermass follows the case rather than covering it up, and is a step behind at every turn. Val Guest adapted Nigel Kneale's BBC television serial for the Hammer studio. Its importance is generic: this film turned Hammer into a producer of horror and started the British horror of the decades that followed. The X in the title is not a coincidence but a reference to the adult certificate the film received. Richard Wordsworth plays the transforming astronaut almost entirely with his body, and his silent scenes are the best thing in it. Who it is for: anyone curious about fifties British science fiction and the history of horror. Who it is not for: viewers expecting modern effects.