The Synopsis - Professor Bernard Quatermass is an iconic character from early British television, having appeared in three serials that were later remade as films. One of these was Quatermass and the Pit, where Quatermass (Andrew Keir), a space pioneer, is taken to the site of what is believed to be a piece of unexploded ordnance in an area of London called Hobb's End. Said ordnance transpires to be extraterrestrial in origin when it is drilled into, and a telekinetic force is released that affects the DNA of most of the people that it comes into contact with, Quatermass included, though he is snapped back into reality by an unaffected colleague, Roney (James Donald), with whom he tries to devise a remedy for the situation. The Destruction - Though most of the entries on this list have been quite recent, the destruction of Quatermass' London was filmed in the 1960s, where special effects were all but non-existent and on-screen destruction was usually done through techniques such as the actual blowing up of miniatures or sets. Despite this, the psychic energy that is emitted by the martian missile does a fairly competent demolition job, tearing up a vast array of streets and buildings as the population affected by the discharge goes on a destructive rampage.
