Quatermass and the Pit (1967)
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London workers dig up what they think is an unexploded wartime bomb. It turns out to be a five-million-year-old Martian spacecraft, buried alongside the bones of early humans. What we learn threatens to shake the foundations of faith, indeed of human civilization.
QUATERMASS AND THE PIT (1967) began as a six-part BBC serial, written by Nigel Kneale and broadcast across the winter of 1958 and 1959. Hammer brought it to the screen eight years later, released in America as Five Million Years to Earth and directed by Roy Ward Baker. It remains one of the most intelligent science fiction stories ever filmed.
Kneale conceived it when World War II was still recent memory and unexploded bombs a real hazard, so the image of digging into the ground and finding buried death from above lands before any alien appears.
The film argues that the impulse toward genocide is ancient and innate. The original television version made its subtext text: The Notting Hill race riots against Black migrants had occurred just before the series aired, and Kneale inserted a fictional news bulletin into Episode 1 stating that "race riots are continuing in Birmingham." The suggestion that real-world violence had continued to spread prompted complaints from Birmingham's West Indian community.
Kneale's cold, scientific dread runs through decades of the horror that followed. John Carpenter loved this film so much that he wrote Prince of Darkness under a pen name, Martin Quatermass.
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Quatermass and the Pit (1967) was co-financed by Seven Arts Productions, with Associated British Picture Corporation and Twentieth Century Fox, after a previous partnership with Columbia Pictures fell through, leading to a split international theatrical distribution strategy. In the United Kingdom, Associated British Pathé distributed the film under its original title on November 9, 1967, whereas Twentieth Century Fox handled the United States release on February 16, 1968, retitling the film Five Million Years to Earth.
About the Film
World in panic! Cities in flames!
- Directed By
- Roy Ward Baker
- Runtime
- 97 minutes
- Released
- November 9, 1967
- US Theatrical
- February 16, 1968
- Certification
- L
- Country
- United Kingdom
- Starring
- Andrew Keir, James Donald, Barbara Shelley, Julian Glover, Bryan Marshall
More Credits
- Genres
- Science Fiction, Horror
- Language
- English
- Origin
- GB
- Studios
- Hammer Film Productions
- Collection
- Quatermass (Hammer) Collection
- Written By
- Nigel Kneale
- Produced By
- Anthony Nelson Keys
- Cinematography
- Arthur Grant
- Music
- Tristram Cary
- Also Starring
- Maurice Good, Duncan Lamont, Peter Copley, Edwin Richfield, Grant Taylor
- Budget
- $367,085
- Box Office
- $750,000
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on of the all time great sci fi movies
Good one.
With the right updates, can you imagine it being made now. No story changes, just newer CGI and special effects. Instant classic
I could see someone like Del Toro doing it.
It’s easy to forget a first time viewing but 50some years ago I remember being enthralled and terrified as this movie unfolded, there seem to be discoveries and revelations every 5 minutes!
Dan Cook
I love this movie. Recently bought it on bluray and it looks stunning.
Genuinely scarey back In the day 😵💫
Really love this movie. Aside from the Video onto the past of the little Martians running around, which looks really silly I’m sorry, that’s is very decent, intelligent science fiction. It ends perfectly too, with 2 people quietly sitting in the wreckage. Which is how you would react after experiencing that.
Great movie! Needs an R-rated remake.
Saw most of it as a kid, loved it because it had aliens and Paleoanthropology
Such a great movie!
Extremely, profoundly frightening to me, when I saw it on TV as a little kid. Oh my gosh. Quite nightmarish.
Interesting. I don’t think I ever saw this one. BTW, finding unexploded WW2 bombs is still a real hazard here in Germany. 😅
Notable for leeeping. And hoppping.
Grasshoppers have never been so terrifying
Breen got what he deserved.
The Martians of course have three legs……a nod to Kneale’s birthplace of the Isle of Man.
Bonzo Slater Ah! I always took it as a nod to H.G. Wells – but maybe it’s both!
Excellent film!!
I remember the TV series, very vividly. Excellent, state of the art effects at the time.
I also remember an episode of “Hancock’s Half Hour ” that did a very good spoof of it.
Cringeworthy spoof from Hammer after the two masterpieces that are Xperiment and 2.The cheap plastic alien is embarrassing probrably on loan from Dr Who,and Keir fumbling away in the most miscast part ever.
Couldn’t disagree with you more.
saw this first at DC WORLDCON ’74 (…?)
about the ONLY spaceship design ever that didint look like some sort of bullet.
I saw it the first time in a theater in Petaluma, California in 1970. Loved it.
‘Are you insured? Im insured.’
My favorite movie
Movie that screams for a remake.
The first time I saw it, it scared the daylights out of me.
Rewatched the film last year for the first time in over 20yrs
Great as the movie is, the TV serial was even better.
Awesome movie, one of the best sci-fi horror stories ever! Extremely underrated.
A classic. And superb.
Superb, chilling. Terrific sound design & effects…👌
😎😎😎
Great Brit Sy Fy
A very scary, creepy, eerie movie. Saw it on holidays in the late 60s. Now have the excellent Blu-Ray plus the original tv version. As well as the other films in the series.
Love this movie. The opening tension of digging up unexploded bombs from WWII also inspired the DANGER: UXB! TV series.
For me, the greatest visual effect was of veins appearing & glowing all over the spacecraft and pulsating — a simple rotoscoping job, but so well done that it make the spacecraft come alive with menace!
I work with Cranes and when that guy in the middle decides to get into a Tower Crane to destroy the Devil, well, it was a creepy movie, 500 Million Years To Earth.
Above average sci-fi movie.
Loved it as a child. Love it now