In 1955, a bar-chair-based production company called Hammer Studios made their first horror

feature.

It was based on a BBC television serial written by Nigel Neal from a couple of years earlier

about an astronaut returning to Earth from a space mission accompanied by something

otherworldly. This would be the first official Hammer horror film and is arguably one of the

most important movies in the birth of the British horror movie industry. A few years later,

British MGM studios would produce their own science fiction horror movies about aliens

invading a small village. Both of these movies had considerably different styles and sensibilities

to the American alien sci-fi movies of the time. Smaller budgets meant that they relied less on

spectacle and more on the horror of their ideas. This, however, made them no less important in the

evolution of the genre and no less terrifying. Join me as we continue exploring the evolution

of alien horror and we discuss the quite a mass experiment and village of the damned.

Welcome back to the evolution of horror. My name is Mike Munter and as ever I am your host.

If you're tuning in for the first time, then welcome in this podcast we explore and dissect

the history and the evolution of the horror genre by looking at particular sub-jummers

one series at a time. We are currently in the middle of our seventh series exploring the evolution

of alien sci-fi and cosmic horror and this is part six. This week's episode is sponsored by

$20 Patreon subscriber David Williams and in this week's episode, as that intro suggested,

we are going to be looking at two British sci-fi horror movies from the 50s and 60s. The

quite a mass experiment from 1955 and village of the damned from 1960. Both of these discussions

will be spoiler-rific and just so there's no confusion, we are talking about the Hammer Studios

quite a mass experiment directed by Val Guest, not the Nigel Neal BBC TV show. I personally was very

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