Horror Express-1974

Director Eugenio Martin

Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas

Scott’s Review #311

Reviewed December 30, 2015

Grade: B

Horror Express (1974) is a fun 1970s Spanish/British horror film starring legendary horror actors Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing.

A horror version of Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express, with a bit of camp thrown in, it is an entertaining late-night experience on a low budget.

It is the early 1900’s, and while traveling from Shanghai to Moscow via the Trans-Siberian Express, a British anthropologist named Professor Alexander Saxton (Lee) brings an enormous, mysterious crate on board containing a creature he discovered in a cave.

What we know is that it has something to do with human evolution.

A fellow passenger, Doctor Wells (Cushing), and other passengers become suspicious of the crate and demand that it be opened.

Things go awry, and victims begin to be murdered by the creature (an ape-like monster) and left with eyes completely white with missing pupils and irises.

The best part of Horror Express is the setting. The cozy train is a perfect backdrop for the events, and it makes the film exciting as the different cars are nicely set-decorated.

This lends itself to a sense of entrapment and being unable to escape the creature as it roams freely from car to car.

For a low-budget film, the train sets are quite believable, as are the train sounds. It feels like the actors are on a real train as the tooting horns and the sounds of the tracks are authentic.

Having actors as big as Lee and Cushing lends the film respect in horror circles, and both deliver believable performances.

This film would not have been as good without the talents (and name recognition) of both.

There are also interesting supporting characters, and I didn’t find the acting to be too over-the-top, as is common in similar horror films.

Specifically, the countess’s role and Telly Savalas’s appearance as a Cossack officer investigating the events are interesting.

Fans of this genre of horror will understand that suspension of disbelief is necessary as the plot gets a bit goofy- something about the creature taking the information from the victim’s brain and the victims subsequently turning into zombies- it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.

Especially towards the end, as some drunken Russians and some weird resurrections happen, but that is somehow okay.

For a late-night viewing with some spirits, you can’t ask too many questions, and Horror Express (1974) is a decent flick.