Horror Express

I was deep into my British horror discovery and obsession several years ago. It never really disappeared, as I revisit many of these films often. Anyway, I remember watching Hammer film after Hammer film and always finding myself running into this film as a suggestion. Trying to procure a copy was the difficult part. Then, one day, Arrow announced they were releasing a Blu-Ray of the film. I was ecstatic!

I counted down the days until the pre-order went up, and I checked my updates every day. When it finally arrived, I was so excited that I annoyed my wife until she sat down and watched it with me.

Rarely does my excitement and anticipation for a blind watch pay off. This was one such instance.

Christopher Lee plays Professor Saxton, a researcher who comes across a two million-year-old prehistoric apeman and is trying to transport it from China back to Europe. He runs into a frenemy colleague named Doctor Wells, played by the spectacular Peter Cushing. Wells is overly curious about what Saxton is transporting and asks the baggage man on the train to investigate the mysterious box. This proves to be a perilous task as the creature comes alive. The creature is easily one of the most interesting monsters ever in film.

A two million-year-old caveman/ apeman terminator that absorbs people’s thoughts and experiences through their eyes. It causes the eyes of its victims to turn white and bleed until death. When the bodies start to pile up, Wells and Saxton are asked to perform an autopsy on one of the victims, and that is when we get to some solid old-school gore. As soon as Cushing starts hacking into the skull with the bone saw, we are shown that the victim’s memories being wiped also smoothes their brains. The creature absorbs all the knowledge of that person but also can shapeshift into the person he absorbs. He must dispose of anyone who knows what he is.

The introduction to a widely erratic Russian Captain Kazan with about twenty-five minutes left gives the ending sequence a very exciting and action-packed conclusion. He resides at a stop along the tracks and brings his battalion of men on board with the idea that he will save everyone and dispense his iron fist of justice. The burly and brash Telly Savalas plays this character. Savalas, while only being in the film for a short time, really takes this film from a scientific creature feature into the realm of a zombified action thriller. Yes, all of a sudden, the film becomes a zombie movie.

The creature starts to take over victim after victim until Cushing and Lee join forces. A slight hiccup, though, is that on the train is a radicalized religious monk who believes the creature to be the second coming of Lucifer. The monk proves his loyalty to the prehistoric being by sabotaging everyone’s efforts to stop the monster. Finally, a massive shoot-out commences with the creature once Kazan is on board. The problem is nobody seems to want to stay dead.

This film was incredibly important at the time due to Cushing’s wife’s recent passing, and Lee convinced him to continue with production. It helped Cushing keep going and making films when he wanted to give up altogether. Also, the film is rumored to have a connection with some of the same sets as Doctor Zhivago as well.  You will notice that it bears a similar story and plot to the novella ” Who Goes There?”, which was first adapted into The Thing From Another World in 1951. I would be remiss not to, of course, mention the version most of us all know with John Carpenter’s The Thing. However, this film has never been confirmed to be a retelling of that story.

Everything about this film works for me: the characters, the setting, the creature, and the story. It is easily one of the most entertaining of all ’60s and ’70s classic British Horror films, and it was a shame it was forgotten for so long due to poor prints being distributed. There is so much going on in the film, and somehow, it’s woven together perfectly with deranged characters, an almost Agathe Christie-like setting, and an ancient being that is older than the earth itself.

For anyone going down the British Horror rabbit hole, do not watch this early into your journey. It will ruin everything else after that as it is a definitive high mark. It is easily one of the best British Horror films not associated with Hammer or Amicus. It is also better than a lot of their output.

Like I said before, Arrow Video released this a couple of years back on Blu-Ray. It was also the backdrop used in an episode of Shudder’s show Creepshow, which involved Virtual Reality.