Quatermass II
=== The Bolts ===
Meteorites are falling over Northern England, one of which is observed by an Army radar unit. After a farmer finds one of the objects in a field, the soldiers become directly involved, and Captain Johnny Dillon decides to unofficially ask the father of his fiancée, Paula, to investigate. Paula's father is Professor Bernard Quatermass of the British Experimental Rocket Group — "the rocket man!", as one of Dillon's troops puts it. Quatermass and the Rocket Group, now including Paula and mathematical genius Dr. Leo Pugh, are recovering from the news that one of the two nuclear Quatermass II rockets has exploded during a ground test in Australia, killing hundreds of staff and ending their project to build permanent bases on the Moon.
Quatermass agrees to accompany Dillon on an investigation and the pair visit the farmer, who refuses to talk and sends them away. At a pub, they find out that the nearby village of Winnerden Flats has been leveled to build an enormous industrial plant protected by armed guards, which is identical to Quatermass' moonbase design. Upon investigating a newly fallen meteorite, Dillon is sprayed from it with ammonia gas, and a distinctive mark appears on his face.
=== The Mark ===
Similarly 'marked' armed guards arrive from the plant and take Dillon away. Whilst being taken Dillon threateningly tells Quatermass not to follow. After the guards' departure Quatermass speaks with a tramp, who explains that there used to be a small government research unit consisting of a few huts by Winnerden Flats, and that a year ago they expanded and bulldozed the village, and built the plant and a prefab town for the construction workers. At the prefab town, Quatermass sees that 'the mark' and strange behaviour are associated with those who find the fallen meteorites, but before he can find out more the community police order him away.
Quatermass returns to the Rocket Group, where Leo has reconstructed the meteorite, which can carry ammonia and other gases and travel through the atmosphere to the ground in one piece. In London, the Metropolitan Police claim they have no jurisdiction over the matter, so he goes to his contact Fowler at the ministry, who reveals that the plant is a top secret project to make synthetic food, but Vincent Broadhead MP, who is conducting an inquiry into the project, reveals that there are identical plants in Brazil and Siberia. Upon gaining entry to the inquiry, Quatermass notices that one of the civil servants has 'the mark'.
=== The Food ===
As he tries to investigate further, Quatermass finds that other figures in high levels of government have gained 'the mark' after coming across meteorites. Quatermass leaves the inquiry, then returns with Fowler to find that Broadhead has been 'marked' and now claims there is no problem with the project. Fowler takes Quatermass to meet with civil servant Rupert Ward, who has the authority to inspect the plant. Back at the Rocket Group, Leo and Paula deduce and discover with a radio telescope that an asteroid is orbiting the Earth invisibly and discharging the meteorites when it reaches the near point, 400 000 miles over Southern England every 14 hours.
Ward helps Quatermass and Fowler gain entry to the plant and they find that Dillon has been discharged from the infirmary and has left. They then look around and discover that gases are pumped to the giant pressure domes from the pilot plant: ammonia, hydrogen, nitrogen and methane, as opposed to oxygen as in Quatermass' moonbase pressure dome idea. Meanwhile, the guards intimidate and then murder a family who were having a picnic nearby. Back at the plant, Ward slips away to look inside a dome, and Quatermass and Fowler find him stumbling out of it dying and covered in black slime, which before his death Ward reveals was inside the dome instead of food. Fowler and Quatermass escape back to the Rocket Group and analyse Ward's tie with Leo and Paula, finding that the slime is a corrosive, poisonous substance, fatal to all forms of life on Earth. Meanwhile, the asteroid is approaching its near point.
=== The Coming ===
Quatermass deduces that an alien life-form which comes from one of the moons of Saturn, which lives on ammonia, hydrogen and methane, but to which oxygen is a deadly poison, travels to earth in the meteorites, and in the few seconds they spend out of their shells before dying they possess human minds, and transmit knowledge to each other in a collective consciousness. From this, they assume that it was the population of Winnderden Flats itself who demolished the village and built the plant. Quatermass decides that they can use the remaining Quatermass II rocket like a nuclear bomb and destroy the asteroid, much to Leo's protest at the rocket being unsafe to fly. Fowler tries to steal information about the other plants from the ministry, but is overcome and possessed by a makeshift meteorite hidden inside a filing cabinet.
That night Quatermass travels with journalist Hugh Conrad to the prefab town where they meet with construction workers who say that work has been suspended for all except the 'zombies' ('marked' people). They claim that the meteorites are only over-shots from the plant after one of them lands in a pub. These recent meteorites are falling in hundreds and being collected by special guard teams then returned to the plant. Quatermass steals a guard's uniform from a lorry to gain entry to the plant. As he does this Conrad returns to the pub to telephone his newspaper and reveal everything about the secret alien invasion, but he becomes 'marked' before he can finish. The construction workers, however, hear what he says and decide to take action. Meanwhile, Quatermass is inside a pressure dome, where he sees guards putting meteorites into the tanks of poisonous slime that killed Ward, where together, in the recreated atmosphere of a moon of Saturn, they combine and grow into the first of the enormous ammonid alien creatures.
=== The Frenzy ===
Quatermass is narrowly saved from discovery by the rioting construction workers, who storm the plant and along with him are besieged inside the gas distribution centre, where they pump oxygen into the completed pressure dome to poison the ammonids, however some of the workers succumb to propaganda from the plant controllers, who offer them the chance to see inside the dome. The guards kill them by blocking the pipe with their bodies. In anger, the remaining workers fire on the dome with a bazooka, igniting the hydrogen and subsequently destroying the entire plant, killing the ammonids and releasing ammonia gas into the surrounding area.
Quatermass escapes the plant in a gas mask and meets up with Leo, whom he finds unconscious in his car nearby. With little time left to prevent more ammonids returning in meteorites, he and Leo are forced to use the Quatermass II to attempt to destroy the asteroid, despite the known flaws in the rocket's design and its liability to explode. They return to the Rocket Group, but British Paratroopers led by Johnny Dillon take control of the firing base.
=== The Destroyers ===
The team invite Dillon up to the control room, where they see he has written orders from the very top, showing that the ammonids have long been in control of the government. They appeal to his human side to allow them to continue, which he does so after Leo tells him the rocket must launch. Despite both being old and unfit, Quatermass and Leo are the only two who have the scientific knowledge to make such a flight. They fly to the asteroid and land on it, but en route Quatermass finds out that the night the plant exploded Leo was possessed by the ammonids.
Leo intends to kill Quatermass to prevent the destruction of the asteroid, and also to allow the ammonids to travel back to Earth en masse in the Quatermass II. He tries to kill Quatermass with a gun, but the recoil sends him floating helplessly off into space. Quatermass returns to the rocket and jettisons the nuclear motor, then flies the rocket back to earth as the motor blows up the asteroid, killing the remaining ammonids and relinquishing control over Dillon and all the 'marked' humans, returning mankind to its former freedom.
violence, cult, murder