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• Included with the Quatermass Movies.
• In the final film, Professor Bernard Quatermass (John Mills) has been trying to find his granddaughter who joined a weird cult called the Planet People.

Martin Winfree
December 15, 2018
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Shared with Public

In the final film (the original television serials are simply called Quatermass), Professor Bernard Quatermass, portrayed by John Mills, has long since retired and has been trying to find his granddaughter who has disappeared into a weird cult called the Planet People. They have the appearance of hippies or flower children but are violently antipathetic to learning and science. At one point, one of the cultists shouts: “Stop trying to know things!” The Planet People are normally found in the rural areas and are being mysteriously drawn to the stone circles that are found throughout Britain, with Stonehenge of course being the most famous. Meanwhile, vicious gangs are raging in urban areas like London.

Professor Quatermass runs into a group of the Planet People and commiserates with them. He then tries to convince them that there is no planet to be taken up to – until a blazing beam from outer space smashes into the stone circle and vaporizes them, leaving just one survivor. This is just one of numerous “harvestings” that are taking place all over the world; the worst occurs in the gigantic Wembley Stadium (where one of the two 1985 Live Aid concerts was held), where 70,000 people perished – Planet People and gang members alike.

Older people seem to be immune to the mysterious influence from space, and a group of older scientists and others plan to set off a massive bomb while a beam is in place (the incidents last just 20 seconds). Right at the end, the eyes of Bernard Quatermass and his granddaughter meet, and they are able to work together to save the day.

Sometimes the leisurely pace of the television serial works better than the tighter and much shorter theatrical version, and vice versa in other cases. In this instance, the serial version Quatermass is more effective than the comparatively rare theatrical version called The Quatermass Conclusion that I originally found at a local video rental store and later at a flea market (pretty sure it was the same videotape also). I am delighted to have them both, however.

I had a near-complete Quatermass collection pre-Katrina that I mostly acquired at a video store just a few blocks down from our apartment in Greenwich Village, which had many connoisseur-grade items. I despaired that I would ever find them again, until I checked on Amazon earlier this year and found a host of Quatermass products available, with most of them reasonably priced (though not the film version of Five Million Years to Earth, but I did find that one later). For those of you who want to try to acquire your own Quatermass films, look carefully at the ads about the formatting – many of the DVD’s will only work on European players.