Shawn Watson A bunch of half-wit Scottish soldiers are bumming around in an old pit while practicing how to use a gigameter. A horrific giant turd of radioactive underground goo monster appears topside at that exact moment and goes on a killing rampage, hungry for radioactive material. Dr. Royston, an expert in radioactive stuff, investigates said monster and devises a way to kill it.If this movie seems familiar it's because it is extremely similar to Quatermass II, which is odd because the script for X the Unknown was a recycled rejected Quatermass sequel. Also, it foreshadows the plot to the blob by a whole two years.The effects are passable and the occasional moment of atmosphere makes it worth it. The movie is set in Scotland but not one frame of it is shot there.There are worst 50s b-movies out there, many of them accidentally more entertaining. This one just coasts by on mediocrity.

Mark Honhorst Made in the heyday of radioactive sci-fi monster movies, 1956's "X-The Unknown" is all at once archetypal and original. The plot is very creative, concerning a mass of energy which feeds on radioactivity and can take on any form it wants. All of the familiar characters are here. Soldiers who become food for the monster, scientists, and other assorted victims who are typical of this kind of film make appearances. Dean Jagger plays an atomic researcher who attempts to destroy the monster by removing it's radiation. He turns in a dignified and respectable performance, in spite of the pseudo science he speaks throughout the film. There is plenty of action and monster slop to go around, and, this being an English production from Hammer Studios, the dialogue and story seem a lot more intelligent than it should be. The film is much gorier than most 50s sci-fi movies, featuring scenes of burn victims, and even a couple of melting bodies, (Check out the scene with the doctor in the hospital) with some great special effects. Near the end of the film, the monster takes on the form of a big pile of oozing mud which resembles chocolate mousse , and you can see where "The Blob" may have got it's inspiration. My only problem with this film is, if it can take on any form it wants, couldn't it have taken on human form? Maybe it just wasn't intelligent enough to. Either way, it seems like that could have been a neat plot point.Still, this is fun fare that any fan of 50s science fiction shouldn't pass up.

peter-faizey X the Unknown is an immensely enjoyable Horror flick produced by Hammer Film productions in 1956. Scripted by reluctant screenplay writer (he was originally a Production Manager) and regular Hammer contributor Jimmy Sangster and starring an obligatory American lead (to ensure American distribution) in the form of actor Dean Jagger, playing Dr. Adam Royston, a character a bit like Professor Bernard Quatermass. There is a good reason for these similarities. Following the success of Hammer's 'The Quatermass Xperiment' the year prior (a film adaptation of the 1953 BBC serial 'The Quatermass Experiment' scripted by Nigel Kneale) the folks at Hammer were hoping for a quick return and the opportunity to cash in on that first film. Besides which they had also begun carving themselves a niche in the British horror/science fiction market and films such as this paved the way for the glossy Gothic colour Hammer films that were to follow with pictures such as 'The Curse of Frankenstein' in 1957 and 'Dracula' in 1958. Although 'X the Unknown' is a Jimmy Sangster script it was hoped that Nigel Kneale would give the filmmakers permission to include the character of Professor Bernard Quatermass thus making it a Quatermass picture. Although Kneale would allow Hammer the rights for their three film adaptations of his Quatermass TV serials and his unrelated serial 'The Creature' (made by Hammer as 'The Abominable Snowman') he did not allow Hammer to use the character for this production. Thus the character of Dr. Adam Royston was born and in a way it's a pity that Dean Jagger did not portray the role of Quatermass in the first two Hammer pictures, the aforementioned 'The Quatermass Xperiment' and 'Quatermass 2' because he is a lot better at portraying the curious, meticulous scientist Royston than fellow actor Brian Donlevy ever was at playing Quatermass. 'X the Unknown' concerns a radiation hungry monster that appears in a Scottish gravel pit during a routine military exercise searching via Geiger counter for a harmless radiation source. Its forces create a fissure in the ground of the gravel pit at the start of the film and later its true power in unleashed. In traditional fashion it runs amok across the fictional Scottish village of Lochmouth, which also happens to be home to Dr. Royston who works at a nearby Atomic Energy Laboratory. The film is solidly directed by Leslie Norman and benefits from some atmospheric night shoots on location. 'X the Unknown' is notably quite graphic for the time in which it was made, allowing the filmmakers to secure the desired X certificate that the 'Quatermass' pictures also enjoyed. At the time this gave the film a certain notoriety and the melted faces of the victims of 'X' are highly effective and predate the famous sequence from 'Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark' (namely the death of Major Arnold Toht) by 25 years. It is worth noting that the film's original booked director was Joseph Losey, who went on to direct the classic Hammer film 'The Damned' in 1963. An American director, he had moved to the UK (initially working under the name of Joseph Walton) to avoid the Hollywood Blacklist after he was blacklisted for allegedly being a 'Communist sympathiser'. This was not unusual for 1950's Hollywood and many directors, producers and actors suffered under McCarthyism for simply having left wing leanings. Nevertheless actor Dean Jagger refused to work with Losey due to his politics and although a couple of his sequences appear in the film he was dropped (officially due to 'illness') during the picture's first week in production.The performances of Dean Jagger and the supporting cast are generally excellent but special mention must go to Australian actor Leo McKern as Inspector McGill. A young Kenneth Cope (later of 'Randall and Hopkirk Deceased' fame) appears here as the first victim of 'X' Private Lansing. An even younger Frazer Hines (credited here as Fraser Hines and just 11 years old at the time of filming) plays local boy Ian Osborne here. An accomplished little actor Hines would later appear as the longest running Doctor Who companion to date (alongside Second Doctor Patrick Troughton) from 1966-1969 and later as a long running regular character in 'Emmerdale'. The film's main let down is the ridiculous sequence with Neil Hallett as Unwin and Marianne Brauns as Zena, a lustful Nurse who is after Dr. Unwin. They are both at a hospital where a boy who had come into contact with 'X' has succumbed to the radiation burns caused by the incident. Marianne picks this moment to get close and personal with Unwin who ultimately meets the same fate as the young boy. The sequence is demeaning to one of the very few women to appear in the film and was clearly crassly included purely for the benefit of the 'X' certificate rating. His death scene though is very well done. The special effects are actually very successful throughout and there are some memorable sequences, particularly when 'X' almost envelopes a small child, only to be saved by the local priest in the nick of time. James Bernard's spooky, dissonant and minimal score (his second for Hammer following 'The Quatermass Xperiment') nicely counterpoints the action and all in all 'X the Unknown' is great fun. Sangster treats the scientific subject matter with great seriousness and sincerity, and although it is inevitably pseudo-science it has believability and does not patronise its audience. It is also an unusual film in that the threat is not man made, but a natural occurrence, a refreshing change from the much repeated idea of man creating its own enemies by meddling with things it does not understand. This production is leagues above a great deal of the American and British science fiction/horror product of the decade, not to mention the following three decades too and is no doubt one of Hammer's best early Horror pictures.

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.