1 | [[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/screenshot_2020_07_14_at_043803_0.png]] |
2 | [[caption-width-right:350:"How do you kill [[BlobMonster mud]]?"]] |
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4 | A 1956 Film/HammerHorror venture into SciFiHorror, directed by Leslie Norman,[[note]] with uncredited direction by Creator/JosephLosey [[/note]] perhaps best known for ''Film/Dunkirk1958'', and written by prolific Hammer writer Jimmy Sangster. |
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6 | On a quarry by the Scottish village of Lochside, soldiers undergo a radiation detection exercise. Sapper Lancing (Creator/KennethCope) finds an unexpectedly strong radiation emission. With a small explosion, the earth above it splits apart in an indeterminately deep fissure, giving Lancing radiation burns. From a nearby branch of the Atomic Energy Research Establishment, Dr. Adam Royston (Creator/DeanJagger) is called to investigate. |
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8 | That night, local boy Willie Harding (Michael Brook), on a dare, meets something in the woods which gives him similar burns to Lancing. Royston then finds his workshop to have been raided, with a trinium sample drained of radioactivity. Inspector [=McGill=] (Creator/LeoMcKern) learns that several people have died in bizarre circumstances -- in which their bodies appear to have melted. So begins the search for "X", an assailant which can cross barred windows, absorb radiation, and leaves traces of radioactive mud... |
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10 | ---- |
11 | !!This film provides examples of: |
12 | * AgentScully: Administrator John Elliot, impatient with Dr. Royston's ambitious experiments, staunchly doubts the emergence of a subterranean predator. |
13 | * TheApprentice: Young Peter Elliot aims to follow the work of Dr. Royston. His note of a possible cause of test failure persuades Dr. Royston to try field use of the radiation scanners. |
14 | * AttackOfTheFiftyFootWhatever: X grows big enough to cover fields and fill village streets. |
15 | * BlobMonster: A living blob of amorphous earthen matter, X, descendant of a species which evolved on a radioactive Earth, emerges from miles beneath the ground in search of a recent abundance of radiation. It can slip through window bars and ventilation grills and grows to colossal size. |
16 | * BodyHorror: When an enlarged X seeps through a ventilation shaft into the hospital, contact with its radioactive body melts off the bone the flesh of Unwin. |
17 | * TheBrigadier: |
18 | ** Major Cartwright is readily cooperative with Dr. Royston and co. |
19 | ** In a police variant, Inspector [=McGill=] supports Dr. Royston's evaluation of the bizarre threat. |
20 | * CaptainErsatz: After the success of ''[[Franchise/{{Quatermass}} The Quatermass Xperiment]]'', Hammer immediately wanted to make a sequel. However, they couldn't get the rights however, so they made ''X the Unknown'', giving it an extremely similar plot-structure and atmosphere to the first and a highly Quatermass-like hero in Dr. Royston. |
21 | * CreepyCave: Lowered deep into the fissure from which X emerged, Peter finds skeletal human remains. |
22 | * DeathOfAChild: [[spoiler:Willie]] eventually dies of radiation burns. |
23 | * DontGoInTheWoods: Young Ian Osbourne and Willie Harding, on a mutual dare in the local woods, encounter X. |
24 | * DugTooDeep: Albeit inadvertently and indirectly -- from two thousand miles underground, X emerges in search of radiation. |
25 | * FamilyUnfriendlyDeath: Proximity to X boils away the facial flesh of Unwin, revealing the skull beneath. |
26 | * FreudWasRight: In ''Hammer and Beyond: The British Horror Film'', Peter Hutchings notes parallel of a monster released by a crack in the earth with, in the recent ''[[Franchise/{{Quatermass}} The Quatermass Xperiment]]'', a mutation spread by a crashed rocket. |
27 | * FriendToAllChildren: Dr. Royston gently coaxes information from traumatized young Ian Osborn. |
28 | * {{Eagleland}}: {{Averted|Trope}} with Dr. Royston. |
29 | * GoodShepherd: The village reverend conscientiously steers villagers to the relative safety of the church and, when X approaches, pulls a small girl to safety. |
30 | * HeroicWillpower: A guard, rapidly succumbing to the nearing X's radiation, manages, before dying, to sound the fire alarm. |
31 | * ImpendingDoomPOV: From the perspective of something large and fast, we see the terrified young Willie. And later, Unwin. |
32 | * ImmuneToBullets: X, being a gigantic dollop of sentient, radioactive mud. |
33 | * ItWontTurnOff: The hospital radiation room equipment suddenly unaccountably activates -- X has seeped in through a grill. |
34 | * KidAmidTheChaos: An infant girl, innocently oblivious to the danger, nears a crumbling churchyard wall, behind which approaches the colossal radioactive predator, and is narrowly pulled to safety by the reverend. |
35 | * MagmaMan: To absorb a hospital-stored radium sample, X melts open a safe. |
36 | * MuckMonster: Radioactive mud! |
37 | * NothingIsScarier: Little is seen of the mysterious attacks until later on. |
38 | * NuclearMutant: Dr. Royston deduces X to be of a species which, as Earth grew less radioactive, withdrew to the core. Roused by a cyclical gravitational tilt, it emerges in search of a recent abundance of radiation. |
39 | * PowerGlows: A radiation-engorged X starts to brilliantly glow. |
40 | * ScareDare: Young Ian and Willie dare each other to separately visit an isolated tower. Unfortunately, the nearby woods hold something rather more sinister... |
41 | * SceneryPorn: Some lovely shots of the village and surrounding landscape. |
42 | * ScienceHero: Dr. Adam Royston, in an attempt to neutralize radioactivity via two rotating scanners, manages to direct the principal against X. |
43 | * ScreamingWoman: PlayedForHorror with Nurse Zena when Unwin is horrifically killed. |
44 | * ShooOutTheClowns: Jovially bantering [=LCpl=] "Spider" Webb and "[[EveryoneCallsHimBarkeep Haggis]]", stationed alone on the nightly quarry, [[spoiler:have a run-in with X]]. |
45 | * StrippedToTheBone: Exposure to the rapidly growing X causes human flesh to melt off the bones. |
46 | * LetXBeTheUnknown: Obviously, since no-one's encountered anything like this before. |
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