London in Film - Science Fiction

Science Fiction

Nigel Kneale's Quatermass films and television series helped to popularise London as the setting for science fiction stories. The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) ends with Professor Quatermass cornering an alien monster in Westminster Abbey, while Quatermass and the Pit (1967) begins with an alien space craft being discovered during the construction of a new London Underground station. The John Wyndham novel The Day of the Triffids was made into a film in 1962 which also features scenes in London, while the much-derided 1985 film Lifeforce involved vampires from space taking over the city.

The 1950 thriller Seven Days to Noon featured a scientist who threatens to destroy London with a nuclear bomb, and was notable for its scenes of the city's evacuated and deserted streets. Despite the great difficulties involved in achieving this, the feat was repeated for the horror film 28 Days Later in 2002, which begins with the hero waking from a coma and wandering across a deserted Westminster Bridge.

Another nuclear threat was explored in The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961) which has many notable scenes in London, including the Thames running dry. It also includes a lot of scenes inside the old Express Building on Fleet Street and Arthur Christiansen, the recently retired editor of the Daily Express, effectively plays himself.

Both Things to Come (1936) and The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005) begin with the city being destroyed, by war and alien attack respectively, while the 2004 horror comedy Shaun of the Dead is set in the city during a zombie attack.

The 1966 film Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A.D., based on the Doctor Who story The Dalek Invasion of Earth from 1964, is set in part in a future version of London, which has been nearly destroyed by alien invasion.

Futuristic London is terrorized in the 2006 film V for Vendetta by a mysterious, masked anarchist who wishes to destroy the fascist government. The film was based on the graphic novel V for Vendetta. In Children of Men (2006), the London of 2027 is a grim place, full of refugees, armed policemen and exploding bombs. Locations used include Tate Britain, Battersea Power Station, the Mall and Admiralty Arch.

In the Bollywood sci-fi Superhero adventure Ra.One the plot begins in London, where the protagonist Dr. Shekhar Subramanium (played by Shahrukh Khan) works at one fictional Barron Industries. Much of the film has been shot in various parts of the city.