Old school horror, a classic lost to the general public's knowledge

If you don't like a lot of dialogue and a slow burn, or if you can't get past watching media that's old black and white television from the 1950s then just move on. This is for those with imagination that want to be unsettled by ideas at base level.

Over my youth, before things were all streaming, these movies or shows would pop on live TV that you can't find anymore. Old and low budget productions that if you can get past some drawbacks as described, you'll find they deliver quality storytelling, when the best tools they had available to them were crude. Back then the story HAD to be good to be worthy of remembering.

A long time ago I ran across on PBS (Public Broadcasting System) in the US, an old BBC black and white 210 minute miniseries from December 1958 - January 1959, "Quatermass and the Pit". It was later made in to a 97 min color movie in 1967 by Hammer Studios in the UK but was renamed for US release. I prefer the longer format that's more fleshed out.

If you don't know the tale, you won't know what's coming. It goes places you wouldn't expect.

Give the first episode of 36 min a watch and see if it draws you in. I hope you agree that this was well worth a watch. It's old and blurry but the miniseries is a lost classic that doesn't need color or modern special effects to tell a tale that makes you think.

Jump to the bottom if you want the link and don't need more enouragement.

It was reported years after that the miniseries after it ended had a "profound, gripping, and unsettling effect on the British public. It is widely remembered as a landmark cultural event that captivated and terrified the nation." Stephen King, Guillermo del Toro, Stephen Spielberg, John Carpenter, Dan O'Bannon ('Alien' movie), and Mark Gatiss/ Russell T Davies (modern Doctor Who) cite this show as inspiring them in the youth. The Doctor Who show in the 1960s started thanks to this miniseries.

It literally emptied the streets and pubs of London when the show was on as people rushed home to watch, pulling in 11 million viewers in it's final episode. Kids and even some adults where watching from behind furniture. I doubt that will happen when you watch but it is a wild tale with unsettling implications if the premise really was true. Even Queen Elizabeth II was said to be an avid viewer.

To put this 11 million viewer number into context, the entire British "television public" (adults with access to a TV) was estimated to be only around 26 million people in 1959. An audience of 11 million means that nearly 42% of everyone in the UK who could watch television was tuned into that specific miniseries. This level of viewership reflects a cultural phenomenon." This was a time of fierce competition with the 1955 launched ITV taking away ~75$ of the BBC viewership for game shows and American imports that had commercials.

It was reported years after that the miniseries had ended that it had a "profound, gripping, and unsettling effect on the British public. It is widely remembered as a landmark cultural event that captivated and terrified the nation." Stephen King, John Carpenter, and Dan O'Bannon (Alien movie) cite this show as inspiring.

It literally emptied the streets and pubs of London when the show was on as people rushed home to watch, pulling in 11 million viewers in it's final episode. Kids and even some adults where watching from behind furniture. I doubt that will happen when you watch but it is a wild tale with unsettling implications if the premise really was true. Even Queen Elizabeth II was said to be an avid viewer.

To put this 11 million viewer number into context, the entire British "television public" (adults with access to a TV) was estimated to be only around 26 million people in 1959. An audience of 11 million means that nearly 42% of everyone in the UK who could watch television was tuned into that specific miniseries. This level of viewership reflects a cultural phenomenon." This was a time of fierce competition with the 1955 launched ITV taking away ~75$ of the BBC viewership for game shows and American imports that had commercials.

https://archive.org/details/quatermass-and-the-pit-e-06-hob/

You can download it. Scroll down to download options on the right hand size. From the player built into the Internet Archive website you can even screencast it to a tv or tv attached device.