The Quatermass Xperiment - Legacy

Legacy

The success of The Quatermass Xperiment came at an opportune time for Hammer. By 1955 the deal with Robert L. Lippert had expired and the company produced just one feature film that year, Women Without Men. Many of the independent cinemas that provided the market for Hammer's films in the UK were struggling in the face of competition from television and faced closure. The Quatermass Xperiment gave Hammer a much needed box office hit and was also the first film to bring the company to the attention of a major film distributor, in this case United Artists. From this point on, Hammer was increasingly able to deal directly with the major distributors and no longer needed intermediaries like Lippert. This ultimately spelt the end for Exclusive Films, Hammer's own distribution company, which was wound down in the late 1950s.

Hammer quickly sought to capitalise on its good fortune with a sequel. Staff member Jimmy Sangster pitched a story about a monster emerging from the Earth's core. However, when the company asked Nigel Kneale for permission to use the character of Quatermass, he refused, not wanting to lose control of his creation. Nevertheless, the film went ahead, as X the Unknown (1956), again capitalising on the 'X' Certificate in its title and featuring a newly-created scientist character, very much in the Quatermass mould, played by Dean Jagger. Quatermass did eventually return to cinema screens in Quatermass 2 (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967), both of which had screenplays written by Nigel Kneale and based on serials originally written by him and presented by BBC Television. Rival British film companies also tried to cash in with science fiction films of their own, including Satellite in the Sky, The Gamma People and Fire Maidens from Outer Space (all 1956).

The Quatermass Xperiment was not Hammer's first science fiction film, but it was the company's first foray into the horror genre. It was also the first film to be adapted from a television drama. Market research carried out by the company showed that it was the horror aspect of the film, rather than the science fiction, that most appealed to audiences. Three of the four films Hammer made in 1956 were horror films: X the Unknown, Quatermass 2 and The Curse of Frankenstein. The enormous success of the latter of these cemented Hammer's reputation for horror and the company became synonymous with the genre. Michael Carreras later said, "The film that must take all the credit for the whole Hammer series of horror films was really The Quatermass Xperiment".