Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A memorable journey with Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, 10 Jan 2004
Horror legends Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee are booked on the Trans-Siberian Express? There's a beautiful Countess onboard, too? And Telly Savalas shows up and absolutely steals the show? You'd better believe I bought my ticket for this wild ride. Despite a really, really hokey premise, a rather dark movie print, and a lack of major special effects, Horror Express somehow comes off quite well as a traditional sort of horror film with a quality all its own. The setting is the winter of 1906; Sir Alexander Saxon (Christopher Lee) has discovered a two-million-year-old "man" in the frozen wastes of China that may very well be the crucial "missing link." Before his men can even get the precious cargo loaded on the Trans-Siberian Express, a nosy little thief ends up dead, his eyeballs completely white. It just so happens that a Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing), a scientist not unknown to Saxon, is also a passenger on the train, and his curiosity about the strange crate leads to the baggage man's death. When the remarkably living creature escapes and begins a real killing spree aboard the train, rivals Saxon and West team up to try and stop the rampage of the monster. After they saw the heads off of several white-eyed victims, they are amazed to find brains that are wholly smooth. You know what this means, of course - the creature is somehow sucking the very thoughts out of his victim's brains through their eyes. This helps explain the bleeding from the eyes that also seems to accompany death. Just for kicks, the two scientists take a look at a sample of eye fluid from a victim - and what should appear on the slide but the spitting image of the last thing the victim saw. Then they look at a sample from the monster's eye (the monster has transferred his consciousness to another human being by this point, having had his initial host body pumped full of several holes); visions of ancient creatures and a vision of earth from space leads to the obvious conclusion that what we are dealing with here is a living intelligence who came to earth eons ago. In the movie's defense, the idea that the last image a person sees before he dies would be imprinted upon his eyeball was actually entertained by some thinkers as late as the early twentieth century.From here on out, it's basically a struggle for all the panicked train riders to avoid meeting up with a pair of glowing red eyes until such time as our heroes, Saxon and West, can identify and kill the creature in whatever form he now possesses. A gorgeous Countess and her annoying Rasputin-like associate add to the fun, but it is the appearance of Telly Savalas in the role of Captain Kazan that breathes new life into the final half hour of the film. Savalas gives an unforgettable performance, obviously enjoying the role of the campy Cossack to the hilt. He doesn't appear for very long, but he packs loads of entertainment into that short time period, doing everything but bringing out a lollipop and asking someone "Who loves you, baby?" In a sense, this is not one of Cushing's or Lee's better performances, in my opinion. Together as allies for once, though, their dual presence carries this film on its shoulders. Other than a filthy creature sporting the worst case of pinkeye you've ever seen, many shots of "ping-pong ball for eyes" victims, and a couple of cranial autopsy procedures, there's not much gore to be found here. The story sounds rather weak but holds itself together quite well, thanks largely to the inestimably grand performances by the great Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. Horror Express, aka Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express, is definitely a ride worth taking.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Cushing and Lee It can't get better!!!, 26 Dec 2003
By A Customer
This is a real gem for any fan of Lee and Cushing film's, although it is'nt a Hammer film it is certainly has some of those qualitys, but at the same time being quite different. The film has a great story that is'nt dull or boring and the fact you dont get to see the monster till later in the film leaves it full of suspence and chill's.Cant say more except it's a must!!!!Buy it!!!!
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Cushing and Lee on a Russian Train with an Alien Monster!, 20 Jan 2004
The main attraction in this 1972 Spanish film is the cast, since not only do we get Christopher Lee as Professor Alexander Saxton and Peter Cushing as Dr. Welles, but Telly Savalas as Captain Kazan. Apparently, before there was life on earth an energy being ended up on Earth and was patiently possessing various life forms wanting for man to develop. Unfortunately, the primitive man inhabited by the alien being was trapped in a glacier. Jump ahead to 1906, and Professor Saxon discovers the frozen being and is transporting it back to civilization on the Trans-Siberian Railroad (think "Murder on the Orient Express" meets "The Thing"). The creature escapes and starts killing, jumping bodies as its host is killed. That is when things start getting weird. How weird? Well, the alien's victims become zombies, which happens after it absorbs their memories through a process that, ah, boils their eyeballs (you cannot make this stuff up). Meanwhile, the Professor and the Doctor have discovered that the eyeball fluid of the thawed corpse primitive man (remember him?) contains microscopic pictures of his memories, which means pictures of dinosaurs and earth from space. But before we can get too excited about that the movie gets back to the slaughter. This plot by director Eugenio Martin and Arnaud D'Usseau is just so audacious you have to enjoy it. But actually the main treat is Cushing and Lee, finally freed from the constraints of their Hammer characters and just having a good old time acting their way through this mess. Of course the supporting cast look like refugees from a spaghetti western, which certainly makes sense. "Horror Express" is certainly a lot better than most of the Hammer films Cushing and Lee made during the last half of the Sixties. Track down this film and screen it for your next Friday Night Horror Flick party, maybe as a double-bill with "Terror Train"? You could do worse.
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