Doomwatch (1972) — Triskaidekafiles

DOOMWATCH

WRITERS: Kit Pedler & Gerry Davis

Final screenplay by Clive Exton

DIRECTOR: Peter Sasdy

STARRING: Ian Bannen as Dr. Shaw

Judy Geeson as Victoria Brown

John Paul as Dr. Quist

Shelagh Fraser as Mrs. Straker

Geoffrey Keen as Sir Henry Layton

George Sanders as The Admiral

QUICK CUT: A quiet vacation to the island of Balfe leads to some unexpected encounters and quiet fishing.

THE MORGUE

Dell Shaw - A doctor and investigator for Doomwatch, looking into the after effects of a tanker spill on the island of Balfe. Determined, and curious, he’ll uncover any mystery given to him with dogged determination.

Victoria Brown - A schoolteacher who came to Balfe a few years ago. Intelligent, and loyal, she will help Doctor Shaw, but not if it puts the island at risk.

Dr. Quist - The head, as near as I can figure, Doomwatch. The man in charge, but gives his teams enough leeway to do what needs to get done.

Mrs. Straker - A local at Balfe, runs the general store, and the keeper of the telephone.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Earth Day, Triskelions! To celebrate this year, I decided to take a look at a British speculative fiction environmental danger movie called, Doomwatch. It's a spinoff from a tv series from some people who worked on Doctor Who, and if you know 70s era Doctor Who, you kinda know the feeling this goes for. So let's check it out!

The movie opens up right away with a family sneaking a dead little girl through the woods to an open grave, as the mother sobs, giving us a decent enough opening to ask questions of.

We then get what today would be the 'series sell' moment where a printer types out that to combat the rising pollution problem, a new agency should be formed to investigate called...DOOMWATCH

After the credits, we're in the Doomwatch labs, and they set up some pollution dumping from six months ago, and they are sending our hero, Dr. Dell Shaw, is off to the island of Balfe, one of the worst hit, to see what sort of damage they've felt.

There is some fantastic cinematography as Shaw comes into the island, with some shots from the island to the bay, as the boat comes in and, hey!

Hey, I think I see the camera filming them as they came in at the top of the shot!

Balfe is a RIDICULOUSY remote island, WELL before the internet, with one telephone for the whole village. They are that very typical, provincial, insular, rural community I am sure you have seen before.

This all leads to Shaw having a devil of a time finding a place to stay, since they never have tourists to begin with, and even the vicar turns him away. So much trust issues.

He heads to the local police and he's none to happy to see Shaw either, but since it's just for one night, sends him to the Bothe, a local boardinghouse.

We don’t take too kindly to strangers around here.

While settling in, Shaw meets the local schoolteacher, Victoria, because we need a romantic lead for him to bounce ideas off of. And at least one person on the island that can tolerate him.

He peppers her with a lot of questions, and dude, it goes beyond small talk and borders on creepy. But hey, it's the 70s, I guess.

The next day, Shaw gathers his samples, all while a man with a gun watches over him. So yeah, this is a warm, welcoming community!

The watcher creeps closer while Dell tries to grab some seagull eggs for his sample box, and they play a bit of cat and mouse and bird.

His stalker, plus some other strange behaviour, leads Shaw to start suspecting more is going on, so after he sends his samples off on the ferry, he decides to stay at least an extra night and poke around some more.

After witnessing a scuffle at the bar, Mrs. Straker heads up to check on her husband, his voice muffled, and complaining that his eyes are going, all while he is kept off camera in shadow. This is giving me so many Innsmouth vibes.

Shaw goes for a walk in the woods, and after a run in with some dogs, he chases one off digging in the dirt. That's when Shaw discovers the buried child, and he rushes off to the sheriff or whatever.

But wouldn't you know it? Once they get into the woods, the body is missing, the hole is filled in, and the cop isn't happy.

That night, Shaw sees more people sneaking around in the dark, and he follows them off to a dwelling deep in the woods. They leave a basket at the door and leave, but Shaw sticks around.

He creeps around in the barn, looking for any clues, and eventually just gets clobbered over the head and dragged back to his room where he wakes up the next day.

I swear, if I find a Monkey Boy up here…

On orders from Doomwatch, he gathers some fish, all of which are neither wee, or not so wee, but indeed grown to the size of friggin' huge.

They sail near a prohibited area called Castle Rock, and it's probably best no one goes there after the Needful Things incident.

It's been blocked off by the Ministry of Defense, and is separate from the tanker wreck. So Shaw heads off to see the admiral for some added clarity.

The admiral is shockingly forthcoming, and doesn't understand why anything he dumped there would do any damage, since they only dumped some radioactive waste. ONLY radioactive waste!!

However, the canisters are good, made to spec, and they shouldn't be causing any problems, but still, something is going on. Obviously.

They test on some dogs, and they get wicked violent, something Shaw has seen around the island. The pituitary growth hormone they've discovered shouldn't cause this, since it needs to be injected, but they don't know how the hormone has been changed with whatever's going on, and it could now be ingestible.

Dell starts to piece things together, that it could be a form of acromegaly, and the strange look he saw around town, the Innsmout..er, Balfe Look, isn't just the result of inbreeding in a small town, but lines up perfectly with early stages of acromegaly.

They, I hope! get permission and send a diver down to inspect the canisters, and see what else might be down there, to make sure the military is on the up and up.

Long story short, there are canisters down there not being dumped by the military, and that looks to be what is causing the problem.

Dell heads back to the island, and wants to gather the villagers to explain what's been going on, and use the church as a gathering place.

The vicar does't believe him, and instead gets on his high horse that these are failings of the people, another 'reaosnable' explanation. And...after this past year, this anti-science, moral failing bullshit is REALLY hitting hard.

We then cut back to Doomwatch HQ with...ACTION SCIENCE MONTAGE MUSIC!! It's big, bombastic, full of drums and I *love* it.

Doomwatch has traced the mystery canisters back to a company called Doran Chemicals, and one of the Doomwatchers goes to check things out and ask questions.

Long story short, they admit to making the stuff, but it was ineffective, and caused rage issues but then the men at the plant try and duck and dodge, saying if the canisters leak, they'll disperse in the seawater, no harm no foul!

Not realising the complication of the radioactive waste.

Back in Balfe, as Sir Henry is explaining how eventually the hormone left their animal subjects in such a state as to go into a mindless frenzy, Mr. Murray proves the point by taking a dive out the window.

Meanwhile, the vicar's daughter is giving birth, and he calls Shaw in to deliver the child. But it dies in the process, and they may not show it to us, but the implication of it being heavily deformed is taken. Supposedly this nudges the vicar more towards Shaw’s side, but it’s never really played out beyond this.

So the meeting to address the town is on, but Victoria doesn't think many will come, they still think it's just the way of the town, or some kind of judgment.

Quist heads back to the admiral, and tells him they've discovered the source of the illegal dumping, and enlists his help to retrieve of and properly dispose of the canisters.

Shaw and Victoria head to the company that's dumping the canisters and *they are still dumping them*! They have over 200 canisters left! Holy shit!

Back on Balfe, Dell goes to get a drink, and try and get more support for the meeting. He asks Victoria if she'll be joining him, and she bows out so fast like, "Oh no, no no no, I don't want to see you get your face pounded in!"

At this point, the plot is pretty much wrapped up, save for helping the town, and let me try and wrap that up quickly.

To cut to the chase, the meeting gathers at the schoolhouse, and Dell tries to convince them, but when he tells them this is going to be a long job, a year at best, all depending on how bad it is, the islanders lose their mind, blaming him for trying to destroy the island.

And again, it's more painful parallels to today as people lose their minds over stopping the covid 19 pandemic and lockdowns and sighs.

Please, if you would all just stay in your homes for two, three weeks! A month at most, we could have this wiped out entirely!

Dell calls Doomwatch to call off the medical support for now, and as he does, a throng of townspeople, those most affected thus far, arrive to confront Dell and Victoria.

They plead with him, saying they don't want to lose their village, their way of life, but all Dell wants to do is save them, and tries to convince them they are already damaged.

He finally gets through to them by convincing them that this disease is fast acting, their town will be wiped out just by the frenzy it causes in them, that they've already seen. It's only a matter of time.

But he knows they CAN be fixed, they can be helped, if they'll allow it. And I can't lie; this is heartbreaking. You feel for this town, this small community, not wanting to lose their way of life, their homes, with the extended time they'll be away, but with the fate already sealed one way or another, they agree it best to live, and maybe fix the town later.

It's for the greater good, but it is still so sad, leaving the movie well concluded, with a happy, but melancholy ending.

Do you want Inhumans? Because this is how you get Inhumans.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: It looks really good for a 1970s era British movie.

Audio: Solid enough audio, a dialogue heavy movie, so nothing to really stand out.

Sound Bite: "Strange, every time I tell Shaw something he doesn't want to hear, the telephone always breaks down"

Body Count: As tends to happen with the more scifi movies, this is less about the death than the story.

0 - We see a body being buried before the credits

1 - An hour and four minutes, and one of the Deep Ones takes a spill out the window.

Best Corpse: I am taking a pass on this one, we never see Mr. Murray’s body, and I ain’t gonna dance on the grave of a child. This time.

Blood Type - F+: No blood, and the acromegaly makeup isn’t bad, but also clearly masks.

Drink Up!: Every time someone with a gun watches Dell.

Movie Review: This isn’t exactly our normal fare here, but I quite enjoyed it. It has this early 70s cheese to it, but that also comes with that 70s charm. The story is solid and unfolds well. The biggest flaws of it are just because the slower pace of the time, and that there’s no big surprises. It all just kinda slowly unspools. But it’s a well made tale, well acted, and for a nice bit of simpler, science fiction, save the Earth storytelling, I enjoy it. I love 70s Doctor Who, and like I said, it fits in with that style well. Three out of five giant fish.

Entertainment Value: The biggest entertainment here comes from the whole 70s feel to it. If you enjoy that aesthetic, you’re gonna have a good time. This movie is, as you can probably tell, like something almost Lovecraftian in atmosphere, with the suspicious, cautious, protective townsfolk, but stripped of all the supernatural elements, and it is a fascinating way to look at the subject, and make it based in science. The quaint 70s charm, and some of the over the top acting of the townsfolk, are the entertaining stuff here. Three out of five enlarged brow ridges.