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DOOM WATCH (1970 - 72)

DOOMWATCH (1972)

Cyberman creators Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis also spawned DOOM WATCH, a plausibly terrifying apocalyptic drama.

BETWEEN February 1970 and August 1972, the BBC broadcast three seasons of DOOM WATCH, a sobering set of cautionary tales created by DOCTOR WHO story editor Gerry Davis and medical scientist/author Kit Pedler. In the show, a Government sponsored organisation - led by Physicist Dr Spencer Quist (John Paul) - investigate ecological and technological dangers in stories influenced by contemporary cases. This "Department for the Observation and Measurement of Science" combated intelligent carnivorous rats, mind-destroying sound waves, toxic mutations and a plastic-eating virus, and a final episode - exploring permissiveness and its impact on human behaviour - was banned. This story, SEX AND VIOLENCE, courted controversy not for its subject matter but for a scene where the footage of a real-life African execution is shown. Even though the programme attempted to make the serious and valid point that watching genuine violence has a different effect on viewers than fantasy harm, the episode was nevertheless pulled by nervous executives.

DOOM WATCH was one of the first examples of environmentally conscious television, where its audience were forced to think about the consequences of unregulated commercial exploitation of Earth’s resources (it was also one of the first to kill off its star - young chemist Toby Wren (Robert Powell) - after its first season). Prescient on a number of topics, it also influenced alarmist science fiction in general, despite basic production values, gaudy fashions and typical 1970s attitudes towards women. At one point the British Government considered setting up a real-life equivalent, with Labour MP Ray Fletcher planning a Westminster committee to include Pedler among its members. DOOM WATCH itself disappointingly succumbed to that popular mantra "creative differences," after friction with producer Terence Dudley.

DOOM WATCH followed in the footsteps of QUATERMASS and DOCTOR WHO to the silver screen with a limp, despite great make-up by British legend Tom Smith.

Helmed by Peter Sasdy from a Clive Exton script, the Tigon movie version sidelines the TV regulars - Quist, Dr John Ridge (Simon Oates), computer expert Colin Bradley (Joby Blanshard) and Dr Fay Chantry (Jean Trend) - for new character Dr Del Shaw (Ian Bannen). Shaw travels to the Cornish island of Balfe (actually Polkerris) to investigate the effects of oil pollution, where only school teacher Victoria Brown (Judy Geeson) gives him any kind of welcome. It is discovered that the islanders are suffering from acromegaly, brought on from a diet of contaminated fish. This has been caused by the Navy - headed by a disinterested George Sanders - legitimately dumping radioactive material near Castle Rock, which has reacted with a failed hormone dumped by a ramshackle waste company.

DOOMWATCH adheres to its umbrella brief of shady failed science, and belongs to that subgenre of cinema - which includes THE CRAZIES and C.H.U.D. - where ordinary folk are transformed into monsters because of unorganised or callous corporations. Whereas the television programme often suffered from verbal diarrhea, in an era where the medium was still viewed in many ways as theatre rather than film, the actual DOOMWATCH movie wastes its cinematic scope and location by becoming a plodding horror. The performances are earnest, but it would have played out better as a reworked one-off TV special.

Britain in the Raw

COOL IT CAROL (1970)
GOODBYE GEMINI (1970)

Released by AIP in the United States as DIRTIEST GIRL I EVER MET, COOL IT CAROL is a kitsch time capsule of swinging London that also started Britain's love affair with Robin Askwith's naked arse.

COOL IT CAROL and GOODBYE GEMINI were released within four months of each other in the latter half of 1970, both telling tales of young couples traveling to London. Inspired by a true story, COOL IT CAROL is part sex comedy part cautionary tale, and Pete Walker's finest slice of sexploitation before shifting to horror. Butcher boy Joe Sickles (Robin Askwith) and garage attendant Carol Thatcher (Janet Lynn in a role intended for Susan George) leave Shropshire to seek fame and fortune. With Joe unable to find work, he soon becomes Carol's manager, Thatcher guiding their wealth through modelling, cheap porn loops and prostitution ("it's only a fuck - I can't believe people pay good money for it.") As Carol becomes a high class call girl with Sheikh and cabinet minister clients, the pair become tired of fabricated existence and return home to resume their old jobs. 

COOL IT CAROL benefits from a solid Murray Smith script and strong performances (we are naturally enthused by Joe and Carol to the extent that the pimping sequence is quite harrowing). Unsurprisingly the papers couldn't see past the smut, describing it as "liable (if not calculated) to corrupt" (Evening News) and "a patch of untreated effluent" (Sunday Times). Similar to Walker's exploitation breakthrough HOUSE OF WHIPCORD, COOL IT CAROL portrays corruption as being far more dictated (and practiced) by those with higher moral standing, where sexual possession is seen as commodity (even in the filmmaker's 1969 travesty SCHOOL FOR SEX, a Judge takes over promiscuous reigns). After all, this is a London for the domain of young players, greasy businessmen and seedy politicians, in Soho clubs with indoor swimming pools.

Judy Geeson, Martin Potter and Alexis Kanner enjoy a London on the threshold of hippie disintegration in GOODBYE GEMINI.

Judy Geeson and Martin Potter star as fraternal birth partners Jacki and Julian Dewar in Alan Gibson's GOODBYE GEMINI. A companion piece to MUMSY, NANNY, SONNY AND GIRLY in its portrayal of childlike family interaction, Jacki and Julian, on a University break, are sent by their father to an old Chelsea Embankment house and immediately hospitalise their elderly governess. They frequent London's underground party scene - complete with Jacki's teddy bear Agamemnon - and are soon ensnared by hustler Clive Landseer (Alexis Kanner with elaborate sideburns). Clive is using the Dewars to shroud him from gangster Road Barstowe (Mike Pratt), who he owes a large gambling debt; Clive blackmails Julian by plying him with whiskey and marijuana then taking him to a hotel room with two transvestite prostitutes. When Landseer is stabbed to death by the twins in a ritual - dressed in bed sheets as makeshift ceremonial robes - Agamemnon is cut in half, and Jacki goes on the run.

Adapted from Jenni Hall's experimental and fragmented 1964 novel Ask Agamemnon, the film abandons the book's Greek tragedy and fantasy sequences for a more linear experience, focusing more on Julian's incestuous yearning. Although it is hard to categorise - psychological sexploitation is perhaps nearest the mark - GOODBYE GEMINI is a surprisingly dull affair. Geeson (at the height of her career following TO SIR WITH LOVE) and Potter (fresh from Fellini's SATYRICON) are overshadowed by Kanner's stellar performance; neither does their journey gel with the older performers ("two old tombstones" Michael Redgrave as "member of parliament with a heart" and partygoer Freddie Jones). It is all too hedonistic to be enjoyable; self-indulgence is one thing, but no production can cope with such a quirky mix of naivety and ruthlessness. At least the fashions and party scenes are garish enough to hold interest, priming Gibson for helming Hammer's DRACULA A.D. 1972.

Rape from Space

INSEMINOID (1980)
XTRO (1983)

Unremittingly cheesey and occasionally ridiculous, 
it really does feel like XTRO is from another planet.

IN the wake of seemingly endless ALIEN rip-offs, Britain’s contribution to this unnecessary subgenera were two low-budget films both structured around extraterrestrial rape: Norman J. Warren’s INSEMINOID - where Judy Geeson is assaulted by a monster with a test-tube penis - and Harry Bromley Davenport’s XTRO - where a male abductee is reborn fully grown by a girl who has been probed by an alien tentacle (for those who want to try this at home, the inseminatory fluid in Warren’s entry was a combination of raw egg and watered-down Swarfega). INSEMINOID tells the story of an archaeological expedition, who discover a vast tomb-like complex and an assortment of crystals beneath a strange planet. The first half is unbelievably slow (with dialogue functional at best), and only gets going when Sandy (Geeson) is attacked. Once impregnated the character - at the psychic urging of the crystals - hunts down her colleagues, feasting on them to sustain her pregnancy, and Sandy eventually gives birth to plasma-seeking twins who abscond to Earth. 

The highlight of INSEMINOID is John Metcalfe’s low-lit Chislehurst Caves interiors, which make the most of a combination of blue and red filters - with this surprisingly lush element contrasting with the increasingly garish content. Similar stylistic flourishes evaporate into a completely nihilistic shocker with XTRO, which mixes scenes of bitter, understated British life with effects heavy on teeth and slime. Narrowly escaping becoming the second official Brit-made video nasty - that honour only belonged to James Kenelm Clarke’s steamy sexploiter EXPOSE - XTRO was marketed as the anti-E.T., with the tagline “not all aliens are friendly.” In fact no-one “phones home” here: they're usually bludgeoned, stabbed or sucked to death in a mess of rubber mallet-head bopping, murderous toy tanks and (inconceivably) a black panther.

"Conceived in violence, carried in terror, born to devastate and brutalize a universe!": INSEMINOID's evil alien twins.

Surprisingly, XTRO opens on an idyllic autumn afternoon. Tony (Simon Nash) is playing with his father Sam (Philip Sayer) and their dog in the garden of their house; the sky shatters, its crisp sunlight replaced with darkness and howling winds. Sam is absorbed by a blinding white light and disappears; three years later, Tony is suffering from recurring nightmares. Feigning amnesia, Sam returns and moves back into a fragmented family unit, and sets about rebuilding his relationship with Tony and Rachel (Bernice Stegers). But this is a front to get closer to his son; in an unsettling scene which could be viewed as a child abuse allegory, Sam bites Tony's neck and starts pumping secretions into the child, preparing him for a similar change. This gives Tony amazing abilities which he uses to bring a toy clown and an Action Man doll to life. The latter set piece is truly outlandish - the boy sends the life-size doll to slaughter his next door neighbour after she chops up his pet snake. The fact that neighbour Mrs Goodman is played by Anna Wing - who spent years as Lou Beale on EASTENDERS - is a fittingly trivial fact for a trivial viewing experience.