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 It's the early 1900s and an anthropologist finds the frozen body of a "gigantic
ape-like man" in China. He gets on a train bound for Europe with his "crated
up, but still healthy discovery." They describe the trip as a "nightmarish
adventure aboard the HORROR EXPRESS." Cushing and Lee engage in a "cat and
mouse game of discovery" with the creature once it gets loose. 1972, 88 minutes, Widescreen, DVD
All aboard! Yes, I am that lazy. Horror Express is a tag team effort from Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, familiar to Hammer
fans from their many Dracula movies together. This one features them as kind
of a Tango and Cash of scientists (I hear your the second best scientist in
Siberia. Funny, I heard the same thing about you.) Both are in fine form and
turn in strong performances (with the exception of Lee's mustache which is a
different color than his hair). We meet Lee on one of those expidetions in the
snowy mountains of China where movie-scientists are always tromping off to
looking for the yeti or the Loch Ness Monster or some such nonsense. This time
though, Lee finds some kind of frozen ape man, which he insists on calling a
"fossil." I kept thinking he was referring to Cushing whenever he said that.
So they crate up the apesicle and head to the train station. By the way, some
of you may recall an episode of Scooby-Do with a similar plot, where a caveman
is discovered frozen, brought back and apparently thaws out and steals
someone's jewells. So, Lee is at the train station trying to get on the
ominously named Horror Express (okay, that wasn't really its name) and sees his
old rival Cushing there. The train guys tell Lee they can't find the
reservation for him and his fossil, but then the take a bribe from Cushing so
that Cushing has a spot on the train. Not to be outdone, Lee trashes the
cashier's desk and that's how he and the fossil book their passage
on...The...Horror...Express! Now, you might assume that they all board the train without incident. If so, I
would assume you've never watched these types of movies before. You see, there
always is an incidnet that foreshadows the horror to come. Usually it involves
hapless teens screwing in the woods or a creature's hand menacingly swiping the
air, or a crazed local retelling a legend that the main characters will
absolutely ignore. In this flick, you get your typical mad monk. Mad monks
are almost always Russian, have long ratty hair and even longer rattier beards.
They usually run around with their wide-eyed spooky look uttering nonsense that
sounds vaguely biblical, like "Thou hast a great sense of evil in thy box of
fossils." So the Mad Monk (MM) gets all worked up when someone finally notices
the dead Chinese thief by the fossil crate. Christopher Lee goes, "oh, you
mean that dead Chinese thief. Don't know nothing about it. Cheerio!" Well
this dead dude's eye's have turned all white and MM takes this to mean that the
box is pure evil and tries to show this to the crowd by attempting to draw a
cross on the crate with a piece of chalk. Since the crate is very evil, the
cross doesn't show up. Chris Lee and I are shouting at the Mad Monk, "press
harder, you dummy!" Lee calls it all rubbish and a conjurer's trick and he and
his fossil board the train. Luckily for us and the story, the Mad Monk also
has a ticket on the Horror Express.  Once everyone is aboard, the horrific hijinks can begin in earnest. We get
introduced to a whole bunch of characters and we immediately start ticking off
who's going to make it off the Horror Express and who's going take it in the
caboose, if you get my meaning. The count? Caboose. The Mad Monk? Caboose.
The Engineer? Caboose. Colonel Mustard? Dining room with candlestick. Oh,
and if you are an older woman and you are the assistant to Peter Cushing in a
movie? Bad career move. Anyway, the choo-choo rolls out and into the
hinterlands of China, on its way to Moscow and Cushing is dying to know what's
in the crate. So he bribes (again?) a train employee to take a peek at what's
inside the crate late at night when everyone would be asleep and things are at
their most spooky. Two things that make this a beaut. One Cushing bribes him
with what appears to a quarter or something. Two, wasn't this fossil found in
the snowy mountains? Wouldn't he be thawing out? I realize a fossil is a
stone, but this thing in the crate was still organic. Shouldn't they have made
provisions for keeping their dude on ice? Well, I guess that's what our easily
bribed train guy thought as he stared into the suddenly glowing red eyes of the
apeman and felt the not so gentle caress of his hairy hand around his throat.
So, we get another dead guy with white eyes and get to see the apeman pick the
lock on his crate and escape. Of course he doesn't escape off of the train.
Noooo, he decides he'll hang around and see where the train is heading. The
body is discovered and Christopher Lee is immediately blamed by the police
inspector who is travelling with the train. "Well, it was
your fossil!" Eventually the Inspector smartens up to the fact that there is a killer missing
link on the loose and the movie spends a good deal of time with characters
going up and down hallways, in and out of berths and peeking in the baggage
department. You get a pretty good autopsy scene where Lee and Cushing saw the
skull cap off of a guy and check out his brain. It was to quote one of the
characters, "smooth as a baby's behind" which meant that all the memories had
been erased. You see, the more you experience and remember, the more wrinkled
your brain becomes. But if some apeman with glowing eyes stares at you and
causes blood to run out of your eyes, then it gets smooth and you forget and
die. It turns out that this beast could also possess you if he looks at you.
But his power only works in the dark. They kept revealing new powers and new
limitations on this thing as they went along. That sort of undermines the
story, but the sudden and insufficently explained appearance of TV's Kojak,
Telly Savales, makes you forget the irregularities in how the creature is
portrayed. Kojak plays some type of cossack who brings some army unit on the
train after the train is stopped somehow. Kojak seems to be portraying him as
some type of Russian rough draft of Colonel Kurtz from Apoloclaypse Now. Big
and bald, swigging vodka, making bizarre statements (I know a horse has four
legs and a person has two legs, but the devil still fears a single honest
cossack.) Lee and Cushing kind of look at each other exchanging a look that
says "thank god we're British." Kojak immediately takes charge and belittles
the Inspector and then whips the Mad Monk into unconsciousness when MM sticks up
for the Inspector. At this time the Inspector is possessed by the creature and
MM is determined to be his disciple. Also, when Cushing and Lee cut
some of the dead people's eyes out and examined them, they were able to see in
the fluid of the eye the last thing the eye itself saw. One of the eyes, the
apeman I would guess, had an image of the Earth from outer space.  Once Lee and Cushing exchange gasps over this latest development, they
immdiately surmise that this thing is some sort of space creature. That theory
is confirmed when we are treated to the obligatory exposition scene wherein the
possessed Inspector explains that he is in fact a form of energy accidently
left behind by his fellow alien freaks and he's survived all these years and
just wants to go home, so could you give a brother a break and help me out
here? Lee and Cushing politely decline to assist the alien in going home and
at some point in time Kojak throws a knife in the dude's back, then shoots him
in the back a couple of times. Who loves ya, baby? Like you haven't been
waiting for that ever since you found out Kojak was in this one. Eventually a
bunch of people are killed by the creature (including Kojak) and then they are
all reanimated by him and ordered to attack all the regular Horror
Express-riding folks left. That must have been a new superpower they revealed
about
this thing, cause I sure don't recollect him doing that before. And if he was
so powerful, what was he doing frozen in the middle of Nowhere, China? The big
finish is when the section of the train (I mean a model of the section of the
train) crashes off a mountain and blows up while Lee, Cushing and the other
survivors stop just short of going off the cliff, breathe a sigh of relief,
then presumbly leave the set to start work on a new Hammer film. This was an
entertaining movie with the interplay between the Lee and Cushing fun to watch.
It was nice to see them on the same side for a change. Telly added some life
to the last third of the film with his over-the-top-ham character. The fact
that it all took place on an isolated train in the middle of Siberia added to
the feeling of tension and helplessness the characters felt. The week point
was the presentation of the monster itself, with its muddled powers and lame,
guy in hairy suit appearance. Thankfully they ditched that fairly early on in
favor of the whole possession angle. Fast paced hokum at it's best! Go ahead
and take the Horror Express (just make sure you avoid the Terror Train.)
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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