This landmark production from 1966 is one of those things that stands a good chance of realling creeping you out – without even trying. It’s taut and the central threat is novel. It’s is easy to see why the author used this story as the basis of an original novel, and a Doctor Who script in 1967.
Whenever I refer to The Slide, I always invoke another classic science-fiction serial and describe it as “Quatermass for radio”.
If you have no idea who or what Quatermass is, I will move swiftly on, but if you do know what I mean and this excites you, you’ll not be disappointed. This could easily have come from the mind of Nigel Kneale, and you can’t help thinking he listened to this on the original transmission and thought, damn, this Pemberton fellow has beat me at my own game.
The MP of Redlow New Town is the outspoken and highly territorial Hugh Deverell, so when random bits of nature start to die off just outside the town, he’s eager to hush it up, despite pleas from his constituents to send for an expert. When a fissure opens in the middle of one of the country lanes near the town Professor Gomez (Delgado), fresh from a controversial scientific expedition, is soon on the scene, There’s instant friction between Gomez and Deverell, and when his wife takes a shine to the scientist, everything starts to unravel for the respectable politician. Soon the hospital is full of people who can’t bear any kind of light, and it becomes apparent there is a link between the increasing number of patients and the peculiar, sliding kind of mud that spills from the widening fissure.
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