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One of the smartest, most suspenseful SF franchises to emerge from the 1950's was Britain’s Quatermass series. Created by Nigel Kneale, the series first saw light as superlative television shows, which were subsequently adapted for the big screen by Hammer. While the shorter running time necessitated certain compromises, all three films were excellent, among the best offerings of British SF. These movies were The Quatermass Experiment (1955, released in the States as The Creeping Unknown), Quatermass...2 (1957) and Quatermass and the Pit (1967, AKA Five Million Years to Earth).

Val Guest, who was also responsible for the superb The Day the Earth Caught Fire directed the first two. The first film, which introduced Brian Donlevy as the irascible, bull-headed Professor Quatermass, remains unavailable on DVD, as far as I’ve been able to determine. This is positively criminal. The film, about an astronaut who survives the disastrous returning crash of his spaceship only to slowly transform into a carnivorous, Lovecraftian blob/tentacle monster, is bleak, suspenseful and terrifically atmospheric. Donlevy’s Quatermass is a rather troubling good guy, since he refuses to countenance any delay before launching yet another spaceship. If you can find the VHS, see this film, and in the meantime, let’s hope its DVD release isn’t too long in coming.As if in compensation, the other two films were released by Anchor Bay as a double feature DVD. Brian Donlevy returns to the role in Quatermass 2. He’s still pretty irritable, but he’s much more straightforwardly sympathetic. I mentioned this film before in my tribute to Michael Ripper, but to reiterate, it is very much in the vein of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Here, though, the takeover by aliens is already well advanced, with important members of the government not what they appear to be (a conceit revisited in last year’s Doctor Who revival). The climactic battle at the industrial plant that is the heart of the alien invasion is pretty explosive, and the monsters on display are impressive despite the limited FX budget.Quatermass and the Pit has Roy Ward Baker directing instead of Guest, and Andrew Keir taking over as Quatermass (meaning the hero is no longer inexplicably American). Both men do their predecessors proud. The only entry to be shot in colour, it makes good use of same, as there is plenty of (for the time) icky ooze and blood on display. Construction of a new subway line unearths a spaceship. The grasshopper-like corpses on board turn out to be Martians, and it seems they were responsible for the colonization of the earth. Our images of demons are the race memory of our previous overlords. The spaceship is far from being inert, however, and a terrible psychic horror descends on London. The climax is a horrific orgy of destruction, imitated (badly) by Tobe Hooper’s Lifeforce. The premise, like that of the other films, is, of course, preposterous, but it is delivered with such conviction by all involved that it winds up making perfect sense, at least for the running time of the film.While the special effects of all three films have been, of course, outclassed by advancing technology, the intelligence of the scripts is something that most current SF films can only envy. Track these down. They’ll reward your effort.

Time to put the spotlight on another DVD company that specializes in releases that are very bad for us, and for which we are profoundly grateful. Today’s object of veneration: Cult Epics. Their very name implies their agenda, but doesn’t quite do it full justice. The epics that they create a cult around are very sexual in nature. I’ve reviewed most of their recent releases individually, so I won’t rehash those musings too much here, but try to give you, loyal reader, a bird’s eye view of their output.

Thre... names dominate the Cult Epics catalogue: Bettie Page, Tinto Brass, and, to a lesser degree, Walerian Borowczyk. Page is the empress of what we might call the documentary side of the company’s sexy output. The Bettie Page Collection box set is your best bet here, with a disc of Bunny Yeager photography backing up two Bettie discs (one of her pin-up work, one of the bondage stuff). While none of Page’s films are necessarily good in and of themselves, they are valuable historical records, and make up an essential companion piece to both The Notorious Bettie Page and Cult Epics’ own tribute, Bettie Page: Dark Angel. This historical document angle also forms the principle virtue of the Vintage Erotica series, which has a disc now for every decade from the 20's to the 50's. Again, one doesn’t watch these films for their sterling qualities, but as curiosities they are invaluable, and worthy of preservation.Tinto Brass is probably still best known in North America (to the extent that he is known at all) as the man who directed that infamous folly Caligula, only to yank his directorial credit when Bob Guccione added the hardcore inserts. Cult Epics allows us to get to know the man much better through six (so far) releases. Far more light-hearted than the bloated monstrosity that is Caligula, these are all handsomely mounted, frequently period-set, exercises in erotica. The films aren’t as smart as Brass clearly thinks they are, but there is a rather disarming auteurist obsession to them.Walerican Borowczyk, on the other hand, makes the kind of movies Brass merely thinks he’s doing, and the highlight here is undoubtedly The Beast, a wildly perverse take on the Beauty and the Beast story that achieves the almost unheard of feat of being an absolutely gripping erotic film. It is a feast for the eyes.Borowczyk isn’t the only avant-garde director with an interest in the darker recesses of human sexuality on the Cult Epics roster. I should also mention Fernando Arrabal, who has the love of the surreal of an Alejandro (El Topo) Jodorowsky, but whose pretensions are nowhere near as annoying. There are three of his films on offer here, in a nice box set.A couple of one-offs deserve special mention. In a Glass Cage is a full-on horror film, though, as one might expect, the horror is sexual in nature. And is it ever horrific. This story of an iron-lung-encased Nazi pedophile is not for the faint of heart, but it is a stunning achievement. And then there’s School of the Holy Beast. There are all sorts of nunsploitation films out there vying for supremacy. But I haven’t seen any yet to top this Japanese effort for blasphemy, degradation and pictorial beauty (in case you were wondering, all three of those qualities are meant to be terms of praise). If these two titles were the only ones in Cult Epics’ catalogue, those good people could retire knowing the job was well done. I can’t wait to see what comes next.

It is time for a long-overdue tribute to Michael Ripper (1913-2000). Those in the know (You Know Who You Are) need no introduction to the British character actor, and we worship him for his innumerable roles in British horror films in the 60s, particularly those produced by Hammer Studios. Imagine, if you will, a dignified Marty Feldman with (usually) a beard, and you have a bit of an idea. Never the lead, but always a reassuring supporting character, ESPECIALLY if he played a barkeep. If Michael's in the tavern, all...will be well.

Where can Michael be found? All over the place, uncredited or not. Though a quick trip to the IMDB will give you the complete list of appearances, much of the joy of Ripper-spotting is running into his familiar face without warning. The earliest bar I've seen him tend is in Quatermass 2 (1957), the British equivalent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The British Government has been taken over by aliens, and their Horrible Industrial Plant is located near the town where Michael serves the ale. A fine exercise in paranoia, and a standout SF/horror film, as are, incidentally, the other two films in the series: The Quatermass Experiment (the first of the three), and Quatermass and the Pit.Michael sheds his beard to play a concerned seaman in the mind-torquing The Lost Continent (1968). On a ship loaded with chemicals that explode on contact with water, Michael is sensible enough to get the hell out of Dodge long before the ship drifts into the Sargasso Sea and encounters carnivorous seaweed, giant hermit crabs, other less immediately identifiable monstrosities, and a colony of Spanish Inquisitors.He is, unfortunately, not able to get out of Cairo in time to escape the wrath of The Mummy’s Shroud (1966), but he has the consolation of stealing the show as the incredibly nervous aid to a unscrupulous (and justifiably doomed) tycoon. Not the best mummy film, but not the worst either.The Plague of the Zombies (1966) finds Michael as the local constable, getting caught up (but fortunately not fatally) in a mystery involving a callous lord killing the locals and then reanimating them as cheap labour in his tin mine. No matter how bad the situation gets, if Michael's around, things will be under control.Made the same year as Plague, on the same sets, and also taking place in Cornwall, is the ultimate Michael Ripper movie: The Reptile. Oh sure, Jaqueline Pierce cursed to turn into a snake woman is pretty cool, but not only does Michael have a pretty substantial supporting role, he is back where he belongs: in the tavern. And there is a scene here, wait for it, of Michael making things right for the beleaguered leads by stirring them a couple of cups of cocoa. Those of you who do not feel warm and safe upon watching this scene are unworthy of my continued acquaintance.