Horror Express

I found the time to finish the movie I mentioned last week so today we're talking about:

Horror Express (1972).

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas and directed by Eugenio Martin, Horror Express is a great horror story wrapped in a stiff movie.

Minor Spoilers ahead! The plot is loosely this: In 1906, an anthropologist, Sir Alexander Saxton (Lee), discovers a frozen half man - half ape in Manchuria. He intends to bring it back to Britain on a Trans-Siberian train. He runs into his rival Dr. Wells (Cushing) who is curious about what Saxton has and accidentally help set the evil free. The monster, an alien intelligence that can kill with a look, leaving its victims with white bleeding eyes, is a real treat. With everyone confined to a train hurtling through the Siberian winter, the tension and the danger ramps up quickly.

End of minor spoilers. I say minor, because if you google the movie, you will get the above info immediately.

The actors are good, particularly Lee and Cushing, and Savalas is entertaining even though he is barely in the film. Cushing had just lost his wife so it is understandable that this is one of his weaker performances. In fact he nearly left on the first day as he felt unable to work due to his grief, but Lee talked him around and went out of his way to make his old friend as comfortable as possible.

The story is possibly plagiarized from John W. Campbell's story “Who Goes There?” which is sometimes re-titled “The Thing (from Another World)”. This story is the origin of The Thing from Another World (1951) and The Thing (1982). This comes as no surprise to me as I was struck by how similar Horror Express is to The Thing, even though Horror Express is nowhere near as grisly as The Thing. That is not to say Horror Express is without blood. There is some but the “Ick Factor” mostly comes from the bleeding white eyes and some pretty gruesome autopsy scenes.

My biggest gripe with the movies is how stiff it feels. Several scenes feel clumsy as the actors stand around awkwardly and it is mostly the experience of the actors that save the scenes. The story itself is good, and although the movie is low budget, they did a lot with what they had. It's hard to nail down the problem, perhaps the director wasn't up to it, perhaps it took too long to redress the few train cars they had between scenes, I don't know. I do know that I actually want to see a competent remake.

I also loved the ending. As with many horror movies, everything accelerates towards the end, and Horror Express is no different. All in all, this movie does it's thing differently and with intelligence rather than relying on shock factor and nudity.

So, do I recommend this movie? Yes, absolutely. Horror fans should give it a look if they haven't already, and even occasional horror watchers could have a good time here. It's not a great forgotten gem, but Horror Express does deserve its cult status.

That's that and all that. Join me again next time and until then, have a great and safe week!