[.ca] Quatermass: Miniseries / The Quartermass Conclusion (2DVD)

From Amazon.com:
As a bracing alternative to Star Wars and the derivative space operas that followed, Quatermass impressed more serious science fiction fans with its unsettling vision of Earth's near future. This four-chapter TV miniseries follows an admirable tradition of British science fiction, compensating for a limited budget (though generous by 1978 standards, at £1.5 million) with superior writing (by Nigel Kneale) and intelligent, resourceful direction (by Piers Haggard) that emphasize ideas and atmosphere over senseless action and special effects. Presenting a near-future scenario that would later inspire elements of The Road Warrior, Max Headroom and other dystopian visions, the story finds Kneale's popular creation, Prof. Bernard Quatermass (here played by the late, great Sir John Mills) in his darkest hour, desperate to find his lost 16-year-old granddaughter and coerced out of retirement to investigate a mysterious alien force that is, in his horrified phrase, "harvesting the human race." While lawless gangs pillage the remains of an England blighted by war and ecological disaster (the rest of Earth reeling under similar fate), a youth-cult of "Planet People" awaits their deliverance from Earth, gathering at ancient sites like Stonehenge and Ringstone Round. Joining forces with astrophysicist Joe Kapp (Simon McCorkindale), Quatermass ultimately realizes that there is only one, devastating solution to their planetary dilemma. Drawing on 25 years of Quatermass legacy through films and television, Kneale and Haggard are uncompromising in their depiction of anarchy, decay, and desperate pockets of hope, and Mills is brilliant in his title role as a genius devoted to saving what's left of humanity. The result of their collaboration is the most compelling of all Quatermass adventures, and the most disturbing. While the four-hour Quatermass series is the one to watch, this two-disc DVD set also includes the truncated theatrical version and "The Enduring Mystery of Stonehenge," an hour-long episode of The History Channel's excellent series In Search of History, placing the fictional speculation of Quatermass in current historical context. All in all, a fascinating combination. --Jeff Shannon

Huffity Puffity Ringstone Round!:
This is a haunting 4 episode BBC television show from 1979. A true classic with Quatermass back for his final & most difficult task. As with all of Nigel Kneal's Quatermass works this has great imagination and depth. As far as production values, I believe that Hammer and the BBC worked harder and were more creative due to lack of big budget funding. They make great use of their budget and allow the characters to develop. Hollywood's mega-budget, computer generated effect-laden, unimaginative refuse will never stand up against movies like this one (or Quatermass and the Pit or Quatermass II). Ideas, imagination and substance are what we need today not bland Lucasfilm special effects and Hollywood movies that pander to today's tasteless moviegoers. Bring back Eastmancolor & Technicolor 35mm 70mm film; it looks 100% better than anything released within the past 20 years!! This 2 VHS set should be given to the folks at Anchor Bay for DVD release. They are the only people who know how to handle this type of film. The VHS looks very good but a Anamorphic DVD transfer would do it justice. Go buy this VHS set and all of the Hammer Anchor Bay releases today and enter the world of true filmaking and imagination!!

Gripping, intelligent science fiction.:
It's a given among science fiction aficionados that the three theatrically released Quatermass films are among the best of British science fiction. This rarely seen, final installment of the series does nothing to tarnish its reputation. Available up till now in a severly truncated version, the complete 4-hour mini-series is now available, and well worth getting. The premise of 'Quatermass' has to do with an alien 'force' (a beam of energy), originating from a distant part of the universe, which "harvests" human beings. It seems that the beings behind this 'force' visited Earth 5,000 years previously, leaving a collective fright among the human population. As a result of that event, the early peoples constructed megaliths (Stonehenge, Ringstone Round, etc.) to mark places where the aliens landed, and where they left transmitters or beacons under the earth. As the film begins, we see a world in decay. Social and environmental calamaties have been rife, with barbaric tribalism resurgent. Young people seem to be in the grip of some kind of collective madness, compelled to mass at these megalithic locations. It seems that that the alien 'collectors' are drawn to the physiology of younger humans (this assumes great significance as the film progresses). The young, anxious to leave behind this bleak environment, believe they will be taken to another planet (they call themselves 'Planet People'). When large crowds of the young arrive at the various locations, a strange beam emanates from the sky to the location. Puff, they are all gone, leaving only charred dust. This is, as we learn, the "gathering time" for this 'harvest'. Quatermass (well played by John Mills) discovers the truth, and and sets out to combat the malevolent force. He's also searching for his granddaughter, who has run away and joined the Planet People. This subplot assumes a key role during the film's ending. While this was a television release, it does an outstanding job (within its budgetary limits) of depicting an unsettling world. Nobody does a better job of creating a socially and environmentally depressing setting than the Brits. Reminiscent of the milieu portrayed in such films as 'A Clockwork Orange', the ominous feel generated by the film is hard to match. While much of the film occurs during daytime, this simply adds to the unnerving effect created. This is the kind of science fiction that does not rely on glitzy special effects or fast-paced action. Rather, it draws the viewer in and dispenses the chills slowly, building the suspense and horror methodically. This is truly the thinking person's science fiction. I agree with another reviewer that it would be nice for Anchor Bay to release this on DVD. However, even within the technical limitations of videotape (and the age of the production itself), the film transfer is remarkably good. Scenes where the sky is "sick", for example, show subtle transitions from blue to a putrid green. If it ever is released on DVD, I'll snatch it up. In the meantime, however, it is enough just to be able to finally see this engrossing film in any format. If you're a fan of the other Quatermass films, you will want to add this to your collection.

This is the one!!:
........yep! this is the one, at age 8yrs, turned me on to real science fiction! The thinking man's Dr.Who... This is real enough to be disturbing, even today. One can see this happening, some 35+ years after it was filmed. Society hasn't changed that much, the concepts are brilliant, even the link back to the Middle Age nursery rhyme.... Go on!! Buy it!! You'll see what REAL science fiction should be!!

A dose of Quatermass:
"The Quatermass Conclusion" is the fourth movie-length installment in the long-lived "Professor Quatermass" series of films, the first of which appeared fifty years ago with Brian Donlevy in the title role. That was "The Creeping Unknown," which remains scary even after the sad jading of our collective special-effects appetite. Donlevy reprised the Quatermass character in the 1958 sequel, known in the United States as "The Enemy from Space." Andrew Keir took over for the 1967 "Quatermass and the Pit," called "Five Million Years to Earth" for transatlantic audiences. It wasn't until 1979 that screenwriter Nigel Kneale managed to get a fourth Quatermass story on film, this time as a BBC "mini-series" in four parts featuring John Mills as a by now aged protagonist. This is conceptually the most ambitious of the Quatermass stories: Kneale sets it in a world afflicted everywhere by social and economic collapse and - this is a key element in the unfolding story - the withdrawal of young people, especially adolescents, from all communal ties. The landscape swarms with packs of juvenile "Space People," as they call themselves, dressed in flower-child fashion awaiting their deliverance to a paradise planet. They believe that their redemption will occur at the ancient megalithic sites and it is to these that they gravitate. Redemption it is not. Quatermass, coming to London from the countryside to seek a lost grandchild and drawn into the investigation of events, theorizes about "the harvesting of mankind." He is aided by an astrophysicist played by Simon McCorkindale, whom many viewers will recognize as a screen presence of the time. This is the most apocalyptic of the Quatermass stories, more so even than "Quatermass and the Pit," with its mass revival of ancient Martian "race memories" in the human population of London, and with its subsequent mad "cleansing of the Martian hives." The images of British society - and by implication all societies all over the world - in its material and moral downward-spiral are stark and disturbing. A few scenes of a near-earth space station and of a space shuttle in distant orbit are unnecessary in that they look toy-like and detract from rather than add to the verisimilitude of the production, but this is quibbling. The atmosphere over the four hours of the story becomes increasingly desperate and grim. Essential equipment breaks down and is irreparable; key people die in riots. The climax smacks of the nihilism that I associate with the 1970s, but it could be interpreted as throwing Quatermass into the role of redeemer, complete with martyric self-sacrifice. A brief epilogue seems tacked on, as though the producers could not accept the uncompromising final scene of Kneale's script - but it does allow for some détente, which might be needed in the moment. Recommended for its far-above-average intelligence: "The Quatermass Conclusion" refreshingly does away with the hoary cliché that the young, and only the young, can save the world.

don't bother:
I saw this miniseries back in the 70's, but seeing it again in 2007, I thought it was dreadful right from the get go. The plot is weak, the acting terrible and the special effects boring. Even John Mills an actor I admired seemed to be struggling to make it professional. When all the hippies(earth people)turn up singing "huffity, puffity,ringstone round", it starts to sound like some childish nightmare gone wrong. Nigel Kneale wrote B movie science fiction - this doesen't even get close - the sooner it falls into total obscurity the better - huff puff puff ( the magic dragon).