The Quatermass Xperiment

The British-American Rocket Group launches a crewed rocket into orbit under Professor Bernard Quatermass. The mission begins with high hopes for advances in space exploration. Soon after, contact with the crew is lost and the rocket disappears from tracking.

Communication with the rocket in space abruptly ceases as the crew vanishes. The craft returns and crashes in a lonely English field. Quatermass, Marsh, and local emergency services arrive on the scene to investigate. Carroon stumbles out of the hatch, muttering 'Help me', while Reichenheim and Green lie dead inside their empty spacesuits.

Carroon is taken to Briscoe's laboratory on the grounds for treatment, since conventional hospitals may not understand his condition. He remains mute and largely immobile but alert. A disfigured area appears on his shoulder and changes in his facial bone structure signal a disturbing mutation. Lomax begins an investigation into the missing crew and notes Carroon's fingerprint is not human.

Inspector Lomax fingerprints Carroon and declares the prints non-human, launching a formal inquiry into the rocket's fate. The investigation deepens as questions mount about Reichenheim and Green and the strange events surrounding the mission. Quatermass becomes involved as pressure mounts over the legitimacy of Carroon's confinement.

Marsh develops the rocket's camera film and joins Quatermass and Briscoe to view the mission logs. The crew are shown diligently at their duties until a sudden buffet shakes the ship and a wavering distortion fills the cabin. An unseen presence seems to loom inside the spacecraft, and one by one the men collapse, Carroon the last. The sequence suggests an alien influence taking over in space.

Judith, worried for Carroon, hires private investigator Christie to help break him out of the hospital. In the hospital, Carroon's mutation grows more evident as he rages against confinement. He smashes a potted cactus, which fuses to his flesh, signaling a creeping parasitic change beginning to spread.

In the hospital elevator, Carroon lunges at Christie and kills him, absorbing the investigator's life force and leaving behind a shriveled husk. Judith learns of the murder and realizes something horrific is happening to her husband. The mutation accelerates as Carroon's body becomes increasingly grotesque.

Carroon escapes the hospital and goes to a nearby pharmacy, where he kills the chemist and uses his cactus-wrapped hand as a weapon. The attack leaves a twisted, empty husk behind and demonstrates the alien's predatory reach. Inspector Lomax and Quatermass begin to connect the string of strange murders to Carroon.

That night, Carroon hides on a river barge to evade pursuit. He encounters a little girl and, crucially, does not harm her, indicating a selective predatory behavior under alien influence. The mutated entity continues to grow in power as it moves toward a larger form.

By morning, animal carcasses are scattered around the zoo and a slime trail leads away from the enclosures. Quatermass and Briscoe recover a small living remnant of Carroon from the lab and conclude that a predatory alien life has taken over the human host and may reproduce via spores.

The remnant grows rapidly within its glass cage, then breaks free only to die of starvation on the lab floor. The scientists realize the alien life seeks to spread by spores, posing a wider threat to the planet.

A vagrant's tip leads Lomax and his men to Westminster Abbey where the mutated Carroon has crawled high along the metal scaffolding. The creature is a grotesque mass of tissue with eyes, nodules, and tentacle-like fronds filled with spores. Quatermass devises a plan to trap it by directing London's power to the Abbey.

London's electrical grid is redirected to the Abbey and heavy cables are attached to the scaffolding. The monstrous life form is incinerated by the electric current before it can release its spores. The immediate threat is neutralized, though the human cost remains heavy and the mystery unresolved.

Quatermass walks away from the scene, telling Marsh that he intends to start again. The line hints at renewal and resilience in the face of catastrophe. In the closing image, a second rocket roars into outer space, signaling that exploration—and danger—continue beyond Earth.