It has been over 40 years since this final installment of the Quatermass saga was first broadcast on TV and an abridged movie version released to theaters. The reception was lukewarm in both venues and it then basically disappeared for many years. As an American, I never saw the original 4 hour version and first saw the movie in a VHS edition back in the 1990s. I was disappointed as I had been a big fan of the 3 earlier film versions and found this to easily be the runt of the litter. It had nothing to do with John Mills' performance as Quatermass which was just a notch below Andrew Keir's and quite above Brian Donlevy's. His transformation from tired old man to an engaged and dynamic scientist was very well done. My beef was with the movie's lack of coherency.
The biggest problem for me at the time was the depiction of the Planet People which seemed very dated. I also found the music to be too repetitive and less than engaging although the nursery rhyme "Ringstone Round" stuck in my head for quite some time. The "heartfelt" slow motion conclusion was typical of the era but I really could have done without it. I immediately watched it again hoping that I had missed something but I hadn't. Nigel Kneale's recurring theme of alien intelligence controlling human behavior was still a viable one and that aspect of QUATERMASS CONCLUSION along with the usual solid performances kept it from being a total washout. However it would be 25 years before I would see it again.
Now, thanks to this Network release, I got to see the full 4 hour QUATERMASS miniseries which kept me engaged even though there was a lot of repetition. There was more background to the characters and even the Planet People actually had some depth since they are portrayed as more of a cult quite capable of killing people without a second thought not just caricature flower children. I then watched QUATERMASS CONCLUSION once again and, because I was aware of the missing material, I realized what a patchwork the movie really was. Here the blame must go to Nigel Kneale as it was he who prepared the 100 minute version at the same time the series was shot. His biggest mistake was in creating a condensation of the 4 hour version rather than an adaptation which would have made it more cinematic just as it did with the 3 previous Quatermass movies.
The transfer of the original series looks great with the colors more vivid especially the green sky after the incident at Wembley Stadium. The sound is also very good and the subtitles helped immensely. Kneale was always a literary writer and many of his lines read better than they sound. The look of the movie version also gets full marks but even that can't gloss over the cut and paste nature of the screenplay. Having seen the full version, I would have edited the film differently to try and make it a little more cohesive. Still it's Bernard Quatermass combating alien forces and that makes it a must for any Quatermass fan and anyone interested in intelligent sci-fi not just CGI and SFX. It may be a bittersweet CONCLUSION but it's still one still worth reaching. The 2 disc set comes with interviews, commentary and a 35 page booklet...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.
