WasAnnon Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Mabel Munoz Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

Roxie The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Robert J. Maxwell Dean Jagger is a scientist working at a lab in Scotland, trying to find a way to render radioactive materials (like a bomb) harmless. The earth splits open nearby and a rude lump of glowing stuff comes pouring out, lethal, crackling like bacon in a frying pan, and conveniently built of the kinds of radioactive stuff that Jagger is working on.The blob -- for the most part unseen -- manages to kill several locals by radioactive poisoning before Jagger and the authorities are able to deploy a full-scale replica of their laboratory model. It may not work because "the fans are out of synch." Or it may explode, like the tiny lab model does.Will it work? Is Jagger's fantastic theory of blobby organisms having been forced underground as the earth's crust thickened correct? Is the short, squat dilatory figure who runs the lab correct when he calls the whole thing balderdash? Will the whole mess blow up? Why does hail always have to be the size of something else? Did the Masons really design the first dollar bills? It starts off slowly and mysteriously. That's the best part. Then it gets fast, complicated, scientifically inaccurate, and very loud. Sometimes the suspenseful musical score, on top of all that crackling, as of cellophane being wrinkled, literally drowns out the speech so you can't hear what the characters are saying.It's not terrible. It's just a routine example of those 50s Briish SF movies that used an imported Yank as the main figure -- here Dean Jagger, there an improbable Gene Evans -- and sometimes they worked quite well -- Brian Donlevy as Quatermass. In this one, the performances aren't bad but the script has a tendency to lose itself once in a while. In the very last scene, there is a blinding explosion from the creature's fissure. Knocks everyone flat. What was that, asks a soldier. Jagger is staring thoughtfully at the smoke wreathing out of the fissure. "I don't know," he replies, "but it shouldn't have happened." Camera draws away. The End. It should have happened if you'd decided at the last minute to end the movie with a big bang in order to use up the left-over special effects explosive.

l_rawjalaurence X-THE UNKNOWN is a low-budget film from Excelsior (the precursor of Hammer) which was clearly designed to cash in on the success of THE QUATERMASS EXPERIMENT (1953). With the obligatory American star, designed with foreign sales in mind (Dean Jagger), the action derives much of its interest from the way in which it contrasts the mundane life of a remote Scottish village with the abnormal forces operating within it.Life proceeds as normal - apparently. A group of National Service recruits are engaged in a routine exercise; the locals happily drink at the local pub; while two young scallywags (Michael Brooke, Fraser Hines) go out late at night to cause mischief. However none of them are quite prepared for the shock of encountering the 'thing' that feeds on energy, and appears to be resistant to any human attempts to repress it.The film gains much of its force from the contrast between such shocking events and the matter-of-fact way in which they are investigated. Leo McKern turns in an urbane performance as Inspector 'Mac' McGill, who maintains his sang-froid while people around him are becoming more and more hysterical with fear. Together with Dr. Royston (Jagger), he patiently tries to solve the mystery of what happens.In sociological terms, X THE UNKNOWN makes some trenchant points about the destructive effects of scientific discovery. If Royston had not decided to practice his experiments in the area, perhaps the Scottish village might have been spared. The point is trenchantly made by Jack Harding (Jameson Clark), after learning that his son Willie has died as a result of an encounter with the terror.Shot in atmospheric black-and-white on a low budget, Norman's film gains much of its force from the way it shows how people are affected by the terror within their midst. Making clever use of reaction- shots and atmospheric music, it is definitely worth a look.

punishmentpark I saw 'Quatermass 2' (the film, not the series) once and that had a similar 'oily ooze monster' in it; that one was filmed partly in a Shell (yes, the oil company) location. This one wasn't, as far as I know, though both did come from the legendary Hammer Studios.This is an enjoyable little horror sci-fi flick with some melting corpses, the aforementioned radioactive oily oozer, a brilliant, headstrong professor, some impressive army machinery, some scientific watchemecallits, and several 'look aghasted and scream into the camera'-victims. Some scenes are particularly cute, such as the ones with the mischievous boys and the wandering toddler. And, of course, there's lots of jibber jabber about the origins of the monsters and how to exactly - finally - destroy it. Och!A small 7 out of 10.

Michael O'Keefe This is a British science fiction flick that gets better each time you watch it. If you are a Hammer Films fan, you have a treat in store; even if this film isn't in that vivid Hammer color everyone loves. British soldiers are on a training exercise near a Scottish village, when they come across a mysterious radioactive mud. An atomic scientist, Dr. Adam Royston(Dean Jagger)is flown in to investigate. What you soon have is a large bottomless crack in that muddy Scottish soil; and it allows a giant radioactive blob to surface that consumes everything in its path. Is humanity in peril? Atmosphericlly suspenseful. Besides popular character actor Jagger, the cast also includes: Leo McKern, Edward Chapman, Anthony Newley(yes, the singer), Peter Hammond and Michael Ripper.Note:It is said that director Leslie Norman was so not liked by cast and crew that Hammer never gave him work again.