Peter Sasdy directs Ian Bannen, Judy Geeson and John Paul in this British chiller where an environmental scientist investigates spills at an unusually unwelcoming island community.

Now this IS like The Wicker Man… only with dumped chemicals replacing the songs, sexual repression, Christopher Lee and the pagan sacrifices. So really, really boring then. Humourless. Horror-less! At one critical point, the mutated surround the protagonists and then just start crying and having a bit of a moan. Surely, I can’t have waited through 80 minutes of dry environmentalist messaging and humdrum investigation for that to be the big finale. Very poor. Here’s the thing about Doomwatch. It had an eye catching hand drawn poster back in the day. Promising a lot more than it delivered. That’s the only reason why you can buy it for £15 quid at Fopp as a limited edition blu ray. It looks cool on a shelf as physical media. Awesome movies like The 36th Chamber Of Shaolin, The Silent Partner, Air and all the older Ghibli animations are currently unavailable on disc in the UK for fucks sake!?

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Perfect Double Bill: X – The Unknown (1956)