When troops practice locating fallout in a remote Scottish quarry, an apparently bottomless fissure opens in the Earth, critically injuring a soldier with radioactive burns. As radioactive goo oozes forth, destroying everyone in its path, scientist Adam Roysten (Jagger) formulates a theory that the living mass, dormant for millennia, now seeks fresh radioactive energy ("energy can only be fed with more energy") and, to this end, is heading straight for the military's own nuclear reactor.
A film of what-ifs and could-have-beens, X The Unknown was originally devised as a Quatermass sequel - until Nigel Kneale, miffed over what he felt was a lousy adaptation of his BBC serial, refused to co-operate (he would, however, go on to co-write Quatermass 2 after leaving the BBC).
More intriguingly, X The Unknown was also to have been directed by the legendary Joseph Losey (The Servant), then on the run from Senator McCathy's Un-American Activities Committee. Obliged to carry the pseudonym 'Joe Walton', he was forced to bow out after leading man and rabid anti-Commie Jagger rumbled Hammer's ruse. (The studio's US distributors considered Jagger's involvement crucial to the movie's commercial appeal overseas, so he had considerably more sway than the director.)
Replacement director Leslie Norman does his best within the budget's limitations, aided by a faintly literate premise "cobbled together in an hour" by 27-year-old Jimmy Sangster (in his major screen writing debut), along with a shipload of tapioca pudding. But, sandwiched between the two classic Quatermass films, this can't hope to replicate Val Guest's achievements.
Faintly ludicrous scenes of soldier boy Tony Newley firing blindly at a tsunami of pud sit uncomfortably with some genuinely shocking moments - faces melting, exposing skulls. There's a sense of treading water here - Bernard's score lazily re-working familiar themes, although some naturalistic performances (particularly from Newley, as Private 'Spider' Webb) go a little way to absolving the film.
A film of what-ifs and could-have-beens, X The Unknown was originally devised as a Quatermass sequel - until Nigel Kneale, miffed over what he felt was a lousy adaptation of his BBC serial, refused to co-operate (he would, however, go on to co-write Quatermass 2 after leaving the BBC).
More intriguingly, X The Unknown was also to have been directed by the legendary Joseph Losey (The Servant), then on the run from Senator McCathy's Un-American Activities Committee. Obliged to carry the pseudonym 'Joe Walton', he was forced to bow out after leading man and rabid anti-Commie Jagger rumbled Hammer's ruse. (The studio's US distributors considered Jagger's involvement crucial to the movie's commercial appeal overseas, so he had considerably more sway than the director.)
Replacement director Leslie Norman does his best within the budget's limitations, aided by a faintly literate premise "cobbled together in an hour" by 27-year-old Jimmy Sangster (in his major screen writing debut), along with a shipload of tapioca pudding. But, sandwiched between the two classic Quatermass films, this can't hope to replicate Val Guest's achievements.
Faintly ludicrous scenes of soldier boy Tony Newley firing blindly at a tsunami of pud sit uncomfortably with some genuinely shocking moments - faces melting, exposing skulls. There's a sense of treading water here - Bernard's score lazily re-working familiar themes, although some naturalistic performances (particularly from Newley, as Private 'Spider' Webb) go a little way to absolving the film.