'X the Unknown' is a typical and entertaining British sci-fi movie and comes with everything that these types of movies relied on......terrible special effects, a budget that wouldn't feed a church mouse and a silly story that is brought to earth by a well-known cast who play it straight with a good tight script and well-paced direction.There are lots of excellent reviews and information on this site that do this movie far more justice than I can... so I'm dedicating this review to Chris Tarrant and Peter Tomlinson...Thank you so much to Chris Tarrant and Peter Tomlinson who made Friday night Hammer movies such a delicious pleasure in the 1970s on Midlands Television.Every Friday night after the 'News At Ten', either Chris or Peter (sometimes both) would introduce a Hammer film which would take us through to the idiotic conversational bible class at about 12:30 in the morning. This was followed by the loud whiny pitch which let us know that there was no more telly for the night and it was time for Britain to go to bed!While my parents were out at the Officer's Mess at RAF Cosford getting drunk and having a good time, I'd make a big round of sandwiches, steal a few cans of dad's McEwans Pale Ale or Tartan Export Ale and settle in front of the TV on my own, for the best two hours of the week.The movies were usually Christofer Lee or Vincent Price doing their various evil characters and of course, there were also sci-fi movies just like 'X The Unknown'. And as the adverts came around, Chris or Peter (I think they took turns each week) made watching these scary movies so much more fun. Add that to the memorable Cinzano adverts along with the Milk Tray ads and Castella ads, Hamlet ads... my Friday nights were the very best that any kid could have imagined.Thanks, Chris and Peter... You'll never be forgotten for the enormous pleasure you brought to so many people like me, who watched scary Hammer movies in the midlands during the 70s, who were now never alone on a Friday night!

A bunch of half-wit Scottish soldiers are bumming around in an old pit while practicing how to use a gigameter. A horrific giant turd of radioactive underground goo monster appears topside at that exact moment and goes on a killing rampage, hungry for radioactive material. Dr. Royston, an expert in radioactive stuff, investigates said monster and devises a way to kill it.If this movie seems familiar it's because it is extremely similar to Quatermass II, which is odd because the script for X the Unknown was a recycled rejected Quatermass sequel. Also, it foreshadows the plot to the blob by a whole two years.The effects are passable and the occasional moment of atmosphere makes it worth it. The movie is set in Scotland but not one frame of it is shot there.There are worst 50s b-movies out there, many of them accidentally more entertaining. This one just coasts by on mediocrity.

Made in the heyday of radioactive sci-fi monster movies, 1956's "X-The Unknown" is all at once archetypal and original. The plot is very creative, concerning a mass of energy which feeds on radioactivity and can take on any form it wants. All of the familiar characters are here. Soldiers who become food for the monster, scientists, and other assorted victims who are typical of this kind of film make appearances. Dean Jagger plays an atomic researcher who attempts to destroy the monster by removing it's radiation. He turns in a dignified and respectable performance, in spite of the pseudo science he speaks throughout the film. There is plenty of action and monster slop to go around, and, this being an English production from Hammer Studios, the dialogue and story seem a lot more intelligent than it should be. The film is much gorier than most 50s sci-fi movies, featuring scenes of burn victims, and even a couple of melting bodies, (Check out the scene with the doctor in the hospital) with some great special effects. Near the end of the film, the monster takes on the form of a big pile of oozing mud which resembles chocolate mousse , and you can see where "The Blob" may have got it's inspiration. My only problem with this film is, if it can take on any form it wants, couldn't it have taken on human form? Maybe it just wasn't intelligent enough to. Either way, it seems like that could have been a neat plot point.Still, this is fun fare that any fan of 50s science fiction shouldn't pass up.

Dean Jagger is a scientist working at a lab in Scotland, trying to find a way to render radioactive materials (like a bomb) harmless. The earth splits open nearby and a rude lump of glowing stuff comes pouring out, lethal, crackling like bacon in a frying pan, and conveniently built of the kinds of radioactive stuff that Jagger is working on.The blob -- for the most part unseen -- manages to kill several locals by radioactive poisoning before Jagger and the authorities are able to deploy a full-scale replica of their laboratory model. It may not work because "the fans are out of synch." Or it may explode, like the tiny lab model does.Will it work? Is Jagger's fantastic theory of blobby organisms having been forced underground as the earth's crust thickened correct? Is the short, squat dilatory figure who runs the lab correct when he calls the whole thing balderdash? Will the whole mess blow up? Why does hail always have to be the size of something else? Did the Masons really design the first dollar bills? It starts off slowly and mysteriously. That's the best part. Then it gets fast, complicated, scientifically inaccurate, and very loud. Sometimes the suspenseful musical score, on top of all that crackling, as of cellophane being wrinkled, literally drowns out the speech so you can't hear what the characters are saying.It's not terrible. It's just a routine example of those 50s Briish SF movies that used an imported Yank as the main figure -- here Dean Jagger, there an improbable Gene Evans -- and sometimes they worked quite well -- Brian Donlevy as Quatermass. In this one, the performances aren't bad but the script has a tendency to lose itself once in a while. In the very last scene, there is a blinding explosion from the creature's fissure. Knocks everyone flat. What was that, asks a soldier. Jagger is staring thoughtfully at the smoke wreathing out of the fissure. "I don't know," he replies, "but it shouldn't have happened." Camera draws away. The End. It should have happened if you'd decided at the last minute to end the movie with a big bang in order to use up the left-over special effects explosive.