This film holds a special place in my movie pantheon because of all the horror/sci-fi movies I saw as a kid, this one scared me the most. It contains at least three scenes that were absolutely terrifying to a child back in the early 1960s. 1) A young boy comes face to face with the monster and all we see are his horrified reactions to what he sees. 2) A doctor in a hospital literally melts before our eyes. 3) The badly burned body of a soldier is found stuffed in a fissure (that face used to haunt me when I was trying to fall asleep). The creature itself didn’t bother me although the Geiger counter sound that accompanied it did. The music is very PSYCHO like (creepy strings) but this was 4 years earlier so Bernard Herrmann must have seen this film. Unlike so many of the films from that era though, X still delivers the goods though obviously not in the same way.
Hammer Films, who had yet to make their color Dracula and Frankenstein films, intended this to be a third Quatermass film (after THE QUATERMASS XPERIMENT and QUATERMASS 2) but it didn’t pan out. Dean Jagger was brought in to replace Brian Donlevy and Jimmy Sangster wrote the script instead of Nigel Kneale. This time the threat comes not from Outer Space but from within the Earth. The performances are low key and effective, the black and white photography is crisp and atmospheric, and the music adds to the intensity. While not as highly regarded as the two QUATERMASS films, I have always found X to be a better movie in virtually every department but, as always, it’s a matter of opinion. Anchor Bay originally released this as a quality DVD back in 2000 and then on a double bill with THE FOUR SIDED TRIANGLE. Then it was released as a DVD-R. Now it’s available as a quality Blu-Ray release.
The Capsule Critic 