The Quatermass Xperiment

A British rocket launches from an English pad as the country's first crewed spaceflight, then vanishes from radar. It comes back to Earth and crashes in a farmer's field, and when the wreck is opened only one of the three astronauts is inside. He cannot speak, and his body and mind appear to be going through a painful transformation. Professor Bernard Quatermass, who heads the project, investigates what happened to the missing crew and what is happening to the survivor.

The Quatermass Xperiment is a British science fiction horror film directed by Val Guest, who wrote the screenplay with Richard H. Landau and made it as his first feature in the directing career that later included Quatermass 2 and Casino Royale. Anthony Hinds produced for Hammer Film Productions and Exclusive Films. Brian Donlevy plays Quatermass, with Richard Wordsworth as the astronaut Victor Carroon, David King-Wood as Dr. Gordon Briscoe, Jack Warner as Inspector Lomax, Margia Dean as Judith Carroon and Maurice Kaufmann as Marsh among a credited cast of 33.

The film runs 82 minutes and was released on 26 September 1955. On IMDb it holds a rating of 6.6/10 from around 8,300 votes, and on TMDB 6.5/10 from roughly 237 votes, while critics gave it 7.8/10 from 22 reviews. The audience scores are moderate and close to each other; the critics' rating is noticeably higher.