It was originally released in the UK as Quatermass II and was produced by Anthony Hinds, directed by Val Guest, and stars Brian Donlevy with co-stars John Longden, Sidney James, Bryan Forbes, Vera Day, and William Franklyn.

Brian Donlevy reprises his role as the eponymous Professor Bernard Quatermass, making him the only actor to play the character twice in a film.

[citation needed] The film's story concerns Quatermass's investigation of reports of hundreds of meteorites landing only in the Winnerden Flats area of the UK.

As Professor Bernard Quatermass struggles to gain government support for his Moon colonisation project, his interest becomes focused on reports of hundreds of meteorites landing in an area known as Winnerden Flats.

Uniform-clad guards from the complex arrive, armed with submachine guns and sporting similar V-shaped marks, and take Marsh away, knocking down Quatermass and forcing him to leave the area.

Lomax puts him in touch with Vincent Broadhead, a member of parliament, who has been trying to uncover the veil of secrecy surrounding Winnerden Flats and the organisation and deliverance of massive quantities of material supplies and manpower without any real explanation as to what it is for.

Shot at by guards as he escapes, Quatermass rushes to Inspector Lomax, explaining that he believes that the complex is indeed making food, but not for human consumption.

Lomax attempts to alert his superiors, but when he meets the commissioner of police, he notices that he, too, is sporting the V-shaped mark; the aliens have taken control of key people in the government.

Realising that Earth's atmosphere is poisonous to the aliens, Quatermass sabotages their life support system, pumping only pure oxygen into their large domes, suffocating them.

Their space base destroyed and now being fully exposed to Earth's atmosphere, the giant masses of combined creatures collapse and die.

The first Quatermass film had been a major success for Hammer and, eager for a sequel, they purchased the rights to Nigel Kneale's follow-up before the BBC had even begun transmission of the new serial.

Returning director Val Guest once again employed many cinema vérité techniques to present the fantastic elements of the plot with the greatest degree of realism.

[14] Other actors appearing in the film include Charles Lloyd-Pack, Tom Chatto, John Van Eyssen, Percy Herbert, and Michael Ripper.

[8] The key location used was the oil refinery at Shell Haven in Stanford-le-Hope, Essex, on the Thames Estuary, which represented the secret Winnerden Flats complex.

[27] Despite its size, the plant was run by a relatively small number of personnel, simplifying Guest's job of making it appear eerily deserted.

[8] Guest was also surprised at how relaxed the plant's management were about allowing him to stage the climactic gun battle at such a potentially flammable location.

[8] Focus puller Harry Oakes recalled, however, that a Newman-Sinclair clockwork camera had to be used for some scenes because of the danger posed by sparks from electrical equipment.

[8] The Shell Haven location was further enhanced by the use of matte paintings created by special effects designer Les Bowie to add the giant domes within which the aliens were incubated.

[28] A minor mishap occurred during the filming of this scene when the wind machines blew Brian Donlevy's toupée off his head and the crew had to chase after it.

[29] Quatermass 2 received its first public screening at a trade show on 22 March 1957; its official première was held two months later at the London Pavilion on 24 May.

[32] On the other hand, Jympson Harman of the London Evening News wrote: "Science-fiction hokum can be convincing, exciting or just plain laughable.

Writing in Science Fiction in the Cinema, John Baxter found the film "a faithful but ponderous adaptation of Kneale's TV sequel.

There are effective sequences, director Guest and cameraman Gerald Gibbs shooting with light lancing up through the shadows in a manner reminiscent of Jacques Tourneur's Night (or Curse) of the Demon.

[citation needed] The film was adapted into a 15-page comics story for the August 1978 issue of the magazine Hammer's Halls of Horror (volume 2, #23, published by Top Sellers Ltd).