Villain(s)  Man affected by meteorite

Actor(s):  Brian Donlevy, John Longden, Sid James, Bryan Forbes

Brief Description  Quatermass 2 (released as Enemy from Space in the United States) is a 1957 British science fiction horror film produced by Hammer Film Productions. Directed by Val Guest and co-written by Nigel Kneale, the movie is a direct sequel to The Quatermass Xperiment (1955) and is adapted from Kneale's own 1955 BBC television serial. The film stars Brian Donlevy as the brash Professor Bernard Quatermass, who uncovers a silent, insidious alien invasion that has deeply penetrated the British government.

Plot:
Professor Quatermass is frustrated to learn that the government has cut funding for his nuclear-powered Moon colony project. Concurrently, his laboratory radar tracks a cluster of bizarre, slow-moving meteorites landing in a localized area near the remote village of Winnerden Flats. : Quatermass and his colleague Marsh travel to the site. They discover a massive, highly secure industrial complex that perfectly mirrors Quatermass’s own blueprints for a Moon base. Officially, the government claims the facility produces "synthetic food" to combat world hunger.

When Marsh touches an unexploded, hollow meteorite, it cracks open and sprays a substance onto his face, leaving a strange V-shaped mark. Armed guards wearing sinister helmets immediately seize Marsh, forcing a helpless Quatermass to flee. Quatermass enlists the help of Scotland Yard Inspector Lomax and a local Member of Parliament. He realizes that the meteorites are actually biological transport pods carrying an intelligent, gaseous alien lifeform. The entities take control of human brains, leaving a V-shaped scar on their hosts. The highest echelons of the British bureaucracy have already been fully compromised.

The "synthetic food" tanks actually house giant, amorphous, Lovecraftian alien creatures that thrive on a toxic gas mixture. Quatermass convinces the plant's human workers to revolt and sabotage the gas pipes, exposing the growing monsters to Earth's destructive oxygen. Simultaneously, Quatermass's team launches his atomic rocket directly into the alien asteroid in space, severing the hive mind connection and saving the Earth. The imposing, industrial alien complex was primarily filmed at the real-life Shell Haven Refinery in Essex, England, which lent the movie a gritty, realistic documentary style. The film serves as a potent metaphor for Cold War paranoia, bureaucratic corruption, and the loss of individual autonomy. It captured the growing unease in 1950s Britain regarding secretive government projects and geopolitical shifts.