Global Warnings

DOCTOR WHO - INFERNO (1970)
DOCTOR WHO - THE CLAWS OF AXOS (1971)

The partially hunchbacked Primords of INFERNO.

THESE Third Doctor serials addressed concerns of global consumption; the first is relatively grounded, the second almost hallucinogenic. INFERNO has an experimental drilling enterprise penetrating the Earth's crust, and releasing an untapped source of energy (labelled Stahlman's Gas after it's discovering Professor (Olaf Pooley)). Dismissing health and safety the work is carried on unabated, and an oily green ooze starts to transform humans into bestial Primords (once humans come into contact with the seepage or another infected, they transform into a furry humanoid state). Accidentally transferred to a parallel universe by a partially repaired TARDIS, The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) sees a totalitarian England where the drilling is at a far more advanced state. Here the technique causes the planet's destruction, and the Time Lord escapes back to his own timeline in an attempt to warn of the disaster.

INFERNO gives a clear message against the meddling of the human race, and at the time of broadcast the UK was in the early stages of exploiting North Sea oil reserves. Although viewed by some as padding, the parallel universe gives the cast and crew an opportunity to playfully exaggerate the norm (UNIT are now the RSF - Republican Security Forces - with Brigade Leader Lethbridge Stewart (Nicholas Courtney with eye patch) and Section Leader Shaw (Caroline John)). And instead of DOCTOR WHO's infamous QUATERMASS plagiarism, here we have a gritty QUATERMASS-like story, where the oil refinery location adds to the hardy feel. Unfortunately this is undermined by the appearance of the Primords.

Masking their true form, Axons first appear as psychedelic, benevolent "beautiful people" in THE CLAWS OF AXOS.

Similar to Stahlman's Gas, another discovery that is too good to be true is explored In THE CLAWS OF AXOS. Golden humanoids called Axons land their Axos ship in England, where they wish to replenish "nutrition and energy cycles." In return for our hospitality the aliens offer Axonite, a molecule which can cause animals to grow to enormous size, consequently ending world hunger. However the visitors are actually tendrilled-monsters which form a gestalt entity, who have also ensnared The Master (Roger Delgado). Striving to conquer time travel to acquire unlimited "feeding," Axos is eventually locked into a time loop by The Doctor. 

Developed under working titles such as THE FRIENDLY INVASION and THE VAMPIRE FROM SPACE, this trippy, organic adventure provides one of the most powerful races in WHO history (their manipulation of matter can even accelerate the aging process, as experienced by Jo (Katy Manning)). Initially wearing glam rock leotards and eyes made from halved ping pong balls, their red spagetti state makes for an arresting rampaging monster (a good creature is worth repeating, as a surviving Axon suit was sprayed green and used as a Krynoid in THE SEEDS OF DOOM). 

Ancient Rhythms

DOCTOR WHO - DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS (1970)
DOCTOR WHO - THE SEA DEVILS (1972)

Due to a graphics department miscommunication, DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS is the only TV story to have DOCTOR WHO in the title. 

WITH new producer Barry Letts working with script editor Terrance Dicks to provide a more mature approach to DOCTOR WHO, these two serials, written by Malcolm Hulke, provided related monsters to explore. In a reversal of the alien invasion scenario, long-dormant cousins Silurians and Sea Devils are ancient races of Earth, and The Doctor (Jon Pertwee) a middleman trying to reach peaceful agreements between them and humanity. Both adventures are pedestrian, and suffer from jarring experimental soundtracks, but offer appealing monsters and interesting questions about morals and military might (although the rubber costumes grate with the increased ambition, as does the Silurians' Allosaurus pet).

For DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS, millions of years ago on Earth, Silurians feared their civilisation was threatened by an asteroid. The creatures built subterranean shelters around the world but the astral body settled into orbit as the Moon, so they slept on until awakened by the activities of a research base. When a rebellious young Silurian seizes power a virus that will eradicate humans from their home is released, but The Doctor finds an antidote before the disease takes hold; plans of a secondary attack fail in an attempt to destroy the Van Allen Belt - a barrier shielding Earth from solar radiation, harmful to humans but beneficial to reptiles - as The Doctor overloads the base's reactor. Retreating to their caves, The Brigadier (Nicholas Courtney) blows up the Silurian base; ultimately notions of co-existence between Silurians and humans are lost in bickering and scheming on both sides.

Lacking the bleak tone of DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS, THE SEA DEVILS is the archetypal Jon Pertwee adventure yarn.

The message of military condemnation is lost in THE SEA DEVILS, where UNIT is substituted by enthusiastic support from the Royal Navy (including a submarine, a hovercraft and a diving bell). Aided by the misguided Colonel Trenchard (Clive Morton), The Master (Roger Delgado) is stealing Naval equipment to build a machine to revive the amphibious Sea Devils from hibernation, while he is imprisoned on a high-security island. The first episode was transmitted at the end of a Miners' Strike, accounting for a sharp increase in viewers from episode two. Yet it was the end of episode three where one of the most iconic Time Lord moments occurred, as the Sea Devils rise from the water and advance up a beach. Like The Silurians, the titular menace is wonderfully conceived, their turtle-like head pieces worn as top hats by actors so that they towered even over Pertwee. But the real meat is the interplay between The Doctor and The Master ("he used to be a friend of mine once ... a very good friend.")

Carey Blyton's score for DOCTOR WHO AND THE SILURIANS has the Renaissance woodwind instrument Crumhorn for its creature cue. This results in a comical misrepresentation, mirroring Malcolm Clarke's controversial incidental soundscape for THE SEA DEVILS. Here Clarke used the Radiophonic Workshop's newly acquired EMS Synthi 100 to his own anarchic whim, bringing an artificiality to the action which treads a fine line between musical composition and sound effect. Letts insisted on substantial edits, while Clarke argued that his work was mood pieces that fitted both needs. At least this particular score was championed by the Manchester University Press publication Time and Relative Dissertations in Space: Critical Perspectives on DOCTOR WHO, calling it "startling in its range of obtrusive electronic timbres and relative melodic paucity."

Curse of Kah-to-Bey

THE MUMMY'S SHROUD (1967)

South African non-actress Maggie Kimberly escapes the clutches 

of Eddie Powell in Hammer's third Mummy picture. 

EGYPT, 1920: a British archaeological expedition financed by businessman Stanley Preston (John Phillips) - comprising of Sir Basil Walden (Andre Morell), Preston's son Paul (David Buck), photographer Harry Newton (Tim Barrett) and psychic linguist Claire de Sangre (Maggie Kimberly) - discover the tomb of child prince Kah-to-Bey. Members of the find are soon being murdered by the Mummy of Prem (Hammer's regular stuntman and Christopher Lee double Eddie Powell), Kah-to-Bey's devoted servant, who can be revived by reading the words off the Prince's burial shroud.

Following Terence Fisher's magisterial THE MUMMY of 1959 and Michael Carreras' disposable 1964 release THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB, THE MUMMY'S SHROUD ("Beware the Beat of the Cloth-wrapped feet!") is a formulaic affair, and the last movie shot at Bray. Written and directed by John Gilling, and scripted by Anthony Hinds, the film starts with a painfully dull and micro-budgeted ancient Egyptian prologue - which includes Dickie Owen, the titular fiend from THE CURSE OF THE MUMMY'S TOMB, as the living Prem - and viewers will also be disappointed by the lack of cleavage, especially as so much is on offer from Kimberly's promotional poses. Unusually for Hammer, the glamour girl role is a character with a narrative function (the somnambulist Claire has the ability to read the "words of death"), but unfortunately Kimberly - who had just appeared in Gilling's secret agent spoof WHERE THE BULLETS FLY - is the worst actress in the Classic Hammer canon.

Studio Canal's Blu-ray/DVD was released in October 2012, containing two standout documentaries: an informative making-of and a touching tribute by Madeline Smith for husband David Buck.

As Jonathan Rigby points out in English Gothic: A Century of Horror Cinema, a telling sign of the relegated stature of Hammer's Mummy sequels is that stunt men were cast as the monster, following Christopher Lee's barnstorming performance in Fisher's original. The real monster of THE MUMMY'S SHROUD is Preston, expertly portrayed by Phillips as an arrogant coward: quick to enjoy the spoils, even quicker to escape when the curse starts to take hold. Elizabeth Sellars, as his wife Barbara, makes an excellent foil, and it is good to see Michael Ripper in a prolonged role as Preston's long-suffering valet, the myopic Longbarrow. Completing the cast are Catherine Lacey and Roger Delgado's scene-stealing turns as the mother-and-son team whose family have barred the entrance to Kah-to-Bey's tomb for centuries. In fact Lacey's role as fortune-teller Haiti, together with Barbara and Claire, form a trio of female characters with second sight, while the male protagonists are lambs to the slaughter. 

The Mummy has always been the slightest of movie monsters. Covered in bandages that barely conceal the decay beneath, and often reduced to stalk-and-slash with a mystical backdrop, the Mummy started life on film as a device for camera trickery; in both Melies' 1899 CLEOPATRA and Walter Booth's 1901 HAUNTED CURIOSITY SHOP, the creature was used to illustrate the joys of celluloid illusion. Unlike the literary origins of Dracula and Frankenstein, the springboard for the Mummy as a potential movie monster was enhanced by real life: the myths surrounding Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon's 1924 expedition to uncover the tomb of Tutankhamen. In Hammer's fourth and final excursion into this sub-genre - BLOOD FROM THE MUMMY'S TOMB - the studio side-stepped including the bandaged menace altogether. Yet unlike Universal's arthritic Mummy movies, at least Hammer's ancient terrors were brutal threats.

Devil's End

DOCTOR WHO - THE DAEMONS (1971)

DOCTOR WHO’s Moriarty: Roger Delgado is The Master.

SHOWN as part of BBC4’s recent Archaeology Night, THE DAEMONS fits neatly under this banner for two reasons. Firstly, this Jon Pertwee DOCTOR WHO serial revolves around the live broadcast (on BBC3 no less) of the excavation of an ancient barrow. Secondly, the episodes themselves are something of a treasured relic; shortly after transmission, four of the original five colour videotapes were wiped. Luckily, BBC Enterprises had made a black-and-white film copy and a colour version (also now lost) for overseas sales. In the 1990s, the BBC painstakingly produced a watchable colour restoration using the black-and-white film and the colour signal from a fan’s home-recording made in the United States.

The Master (Roger Delgado) - posing as local vicar Mr Magister - uses black magic in an attempt to assimilate the powers of Azal. The story’s underlying theme of science versus magic is established early on, then explored during the episodes in which the viewer learns that many of the magical traditions and images are in fact a product of the Daemons “psionic science.” Viewed today, the story suffers from Pertwee's arrogant and inconsistent attitude, and the monumentally inappropriate line when The Doctor refers to Hitler as a “bounder.” The serial is also weakened by its somewhat simplistic denouement - Jo (Katy Manning)’s offered self-sacrifice makes Azal self-destruct - but there's also much to enjoy: in dog collar garb and latterly scarlet ceremonial robes, Delgado’s Master is a highlight, the epitome of evil charm.

The stone gargoyle Bok (Stanley Mason) is brought to life as a servant to the Master. Whether this is because of The Master’s rituals or as a side effect of Azal’s appearance is never made clear.

The Time Lord’s writers had always transformed generic material for their own ends, but the Pertwee/UNIT era drew on Nigel Kneale’s Quatermass to create a template for a large run. The Third Doctor’s first story SPEARHEAD FROM SPACE, for example, gleefully referenced - to put it politely - QUATERMASS II. THE DAEMONS’ plot is not the most groundbreaking regardless of outside influences - witchcraft in an English village has long been a staple ingredient - and the idea of an impenetrable dome barrier had previously been used in John Wyndham’s The Midwich Cuckoos. But ultimately THE DAEMONS recalls QUATERMASS AND THE PIT, with its televised opening of an ancient burial mound which turns out to contain an alien spacecraft, whose dormant crew use technology which Mankind has come to know as Magic.