Quatermass 2 - Plot

Plot

As Quatermass (Brian Donlevy) struggles to gain Government support for his plans for the colonisation of the Moon, he becomes interested in reports of meteorites landing in an area known as Winnerden Flats. Travelling to the area with his colleague, Marsh (Bryan Forbes), Quatermass is astounded to find a huge complex under construction, apparently based on his plans for a Moon colony. Marsh finds one of the meteorites, which cracks open leaving him injured with a V-shaped mark on his face. Armed guards from the plant, who are sporting similar V-shaped marks, arrive and take Marsh away. Quatermass is knocked down and ordered away by men with machine guns.

Trying to discover what is going on at the plant and what has happened to Marsh, Quatermass contacts Inspector Lomax (John Longden), the police officer who assisted him in The Quatermass Xperiment. Lomax puts him in touch with Vincent Broadhead (Tom Chatto), a Member of Parliament who has been trying to uncover the veil of secrecy surrounding Winnerden Flats. Quatermass joins Broadhead on an official tour of the complex, which, he is told, has been built to manufacture artificial food. Slipping away from the visiting party, Broadhead attempts to get inside one of the large domes that dominate the plant's skyline. Quatermass finds him dying, covered in a poisonous black slime.

Shot at by guards as he exits the plant, Quatermass returns to Lomax, explaining that he believes that plant is indeed making food, but not for human consumption. Instead its purpose is to provide a suitable environment for alien creatures that are inside the great domes. Lomax attempts to alert his superiors but when he meets the Commissioner of Police, he notices he too is sporting the V-shaped mark. The aliens have taken control of the government.

Quatermass and Lomax turn instead to the press, in the form of journalist Jimmy Hall (Sid James). Hall is sceptical of their story and asks to visit Winnerden Flats himself. They visit the local community centre where they receive a hostile reception from the locals employed to do the building work at the plant. However, the mood changes when one of the meteorites crashes through the roof of the building and injures barmaid Sheila (Vera Day). Armed guards from the plant arrive and gun down Hall when he telephones the press about what is going on. The villagers form a mob and march on the plant. Rushing the gates, Quatermass, Lomax and the villagers barricade themselves into the pressure control room.

Realising that the Earth's atmosphere must be poisonous to the creatures, Quatermass sabotages their life support system, pumping oxygen into the domes. Simultaneously, Quatermass' assistant, Brand (William Franklyn) sacrifices his life to launch the Quatermass 2 rocket at an asteroid in Earth's shadow that they believe the aliens are using to stage their invasion. The creatures can combine to create 150-foot tall monsters that burst from the domes and run amok. The rocket strikes the asteroid, destroying it in a nuclear explosion. Their base gone, the giant creatures die and the V-shaped marks disappear from those affected, leaving them with no memory of having been under alien control. Once again Quatermass has saved the Earth from an alien intelligence.