''Five Million Years To Earth'' (1967)

By Crusader1307

Hammer Films 1967 ‘’Five Million Years To Earth’’ (originally billed in England as ‘’Quatermass and The Pit’’), is a rather well made and fun, Sci-Fi/Horror Flick, sadly overlooked by many. Although obviously dated, the storyline is still relevant and – will all the other ‘’Reboots’’ we are constantly subjected to, this One should be as well. The Film was based on the popular 1950s and early 1960s British Radio and Television Show ‘’The Quatermass Experiment’’, where a sharp older Scientist/Historian/Folklorist (Alan Quatermass) solved ‘’X-Files’’-like cases (several, like this One which would be made into moderate budgeted films by Hammer Studios). In color, ‘’Five Million’’ had a clever plot and good ‘’tension building’’ along the way. Dealing with an on-going excavation project to expand The London Underground (Subway) System, Workers uncover a  large cylindrical device, originally thought to be a surviving piece of unexploded World War II Germany weaponry. Quatermass and His Team are called in to investigate. They learn that the device is in reality an Alien Space Ship, that crashed millions of years in the past. They eventually open the craft to discovered a collection of long dead, grasshopper-like Entities and associated Alien Technology. They also find evidence of Human remains (also millions of years old). But these fossils are odd. Skulls of the primitive Humans show signs of advanced (forced) evolution of the brain, as if to make the ’’simple creatures’’ much smarter. The Plot also includes the general region underground, known for centuries as ‘’Hob’s End’’. Hob (short for Hobgoblin and akin to The Devil) – has for many generations been a hotspot of paranormal phenomenon.

Quatermass attempts to use the Alien technology to learn more about the craft’s occupants. Nearly killing Himself in the process, He learns that the craft and it’s occupants were from The Planet Mars. This Group escaped a harsh Civil War on that Planet and escaped to a prehistoric Earth. They experimented on the primitive Humans, hoping to improve Their intellect for the purpose of using Them as slaves. SOMETHING (unspecified) happened and the creatures were attacked by the proto-humans, eventually dying inside their crash damaged spacecraft. But, as these Martian Grasshoppers have superiors powers of telepathy, they kept Their ‘’essence’’ alive all these Eons. Now freed from Their craft, the combined mindpower of The Beings merge into a giant, ghostly personification of The Grasshopper Beings, beginning to take over human minds and wreck havoc in The City of London. Quartermass and His Team use an old folk myth remedy to vanquish The Alien Mind Monster finally and save London. As stated, ‘’Five Million Years To Earth’’ is a fun watch and should be enjoyed as a classic bit of English Sci-Fi/Horror from the late 1960s.