Line #32 Film/XTheUnknown


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.

Context Film / XTheUnknown