X… The Unknown.
As part of an ongoing podcast series (titled Hammered) examining every film released by the British production company Hammer, I recently took part in a conversation with John Byrne about one of their science fiction films — X… the Unknown (1956). You can listen to our conversation here:
https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-2-x-the-unknown-1956/id1313994640?i=1000397459962&mt=2
The film is set in rural Scotland, where an unexplained radioactive explosion has opened up a crack in the ground, which drops into a bottomless chasm. This mysterious event is quickly followed by a series of inexplicable deaths, caused by exposure to high levels of radiaiton. A scientist, Dr Adam Royston, from the nearby Lochmouth Atomic Energy Laboratory, is asked to help in the investigation of the matter. Upon investigation the ongoing mysterious and horrific incidents caused by the intense and destructive radioactivity, Dr Royston puts forward a somewhat far-fetched hypothesis.
He believes that something has come up from the fissure, that when the planet was forming, there was some form of life living on the molten surface of the Earth. He may even be implying that the molten surface itself was life. As the surface of the planet cooled, this was trapped under the Earth’s surface and forced downwards but regularly occurring incidents of pressure and tension caused this life form to be forced to the surface. In another leap of imagination, he conjectures that as a form of energy, this life form needed to consume energy to survive. Until this point in history, this unknown life form, this “X”, was unable to find sufficient nutrients. Now, in the age of atomic energy, the life form has something to stay around for, something that can sustain it and help it grow. The deadly radioactive sludge that is making its way across the Scottish countryside is a form of life but obviously not as we know it.
This outlandish explanation nevertheless provides an interesting way of thinking about life that challenges many of the expectations of how that term might be imagined or applied. In this way, the film relates to the development of post humanism, a set of ideas that challenge the boundaries of what it means to think about what might be considered human or non human.
In his book Alien Chic: Posthumanism and the Alien Within, Neil Badmington points out that Hollywood cinema in the 1950s was exploring anti-humanist themes, from a pro-humanist perspective. Monsters, strange beings and aliens were defeated by supposed human qualities, good looking actors finding a way to overwhelm or overcome the threat of the non-human. The films suggested here are Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Them!, War of the Worlds, and The Blob. However, he also suggests there is a compulsion, a need to defend ‘man’ here. A compulsion behind the narratives, suggesting that in warding off an anxiety about the loss of human sovereignty, these movies revealed more than they intended to. These Hollywood movies reveal a knowledge that humanism is in trouble, but take refuge in denial. However, Hammer’s take on the monster here gives us a monster that has been defeated but without a true sense of the permanence of the victory. Are the certainties of humanism undermined? As humanity’s dependence on atomic radiation grows, is the suggestion that the future of the species itself is the real unknown?
