The Quatermass Xperiment

"The Quatermass Experiment" (English: "The Quatermass Xperiment") is a motion picture directed by Val Guest, released in 1955.

The film is based on the television series of the same name, shown on the BBC Television channel in 1953, and is one of the first classic horror films made by the British studio Hammer.

A space rocket launched experimentally by Professor Bernard Quatermass falls in the British outback (it follows from the context that this is the first rocket launch with people on board). There were three pioneer cosmonauts in the ship: Green, Reichenheim and Karun. However, to the surprise of the scientists who opened the rocket, only the last one was found inside, and the rest of the crew members disappeared without a trace.

To find out the reasons for what happened, Quatermass and Dr. Briscoe conduct examinations of the survivor Victor Karun, who is in a state of deep shock. At the same time, the police, represented by Inspector Lomax, begins to deal with this case. Soon it turns out that Karun's body is experiencing some strange changes…

The people in the rocket, which for the first time went beyond the Earth's atmosphere, encounter an alien energy entity. On the video, the moment of contact is captured in the form of a bright flash and the subsequent temporary distortion of the image.

An alien entity devours two astronauts, turning their remains into a jelly-like mass, and inhabits the third. The surviving cosmonaut falls into a stupor; immediately after being extracted from the ship, he weakly asks for help, but soon completely ceases to react to the surrounding reality. Gradually, his body comes under the full control of the alien who has moved into him and begins to change: the skin cracks and becomes covered with mucus, the structure of the bones of the skull changes.

After some time, this person begins to walk on his own again, but with a different purpose: to maintain life and reproduction, the alien needs to eat. Touching living beings (plants, animals, people), the alien sucks vital energy out of them and receives biological material. As a result of such contact, the victims' bodies dry up, and the alien transforms, adopting the features of the absorbed creatures. After destroying several people and animals, as well as a cactus, the alien turns into a shapeless, prickly, octopus-like mass with tentacles. He crawls, including on steep walls, leaving a slimy trail behind him. It is possible to kill the alien with the help of a powerful discharge of electric current.

The alien multiplies, leaving behind lumps of mucus, which are also able to grow and change, feeding on animals and plants. As the alien's descendants grow, they also become like an octopus with tentacles. One of these creatures gets out of the aquarium in the laboratory, but quickly dies of hunger, unable to get to food.