Horror Express (1973)
Directed by Eugenio Martín

Film Review

After their collaboration on the somewhat irreverent biopic Pancho Villa (1972), American producer Philip Yordan contracted Spanish genre director Eugenio Martín to direct an altogether different kind of entertainment, the main proviso being that it was located mostly on the train sets that had been constructed at some expense for Pancho Villa.  Inevitably, the film that Martín made for Yordan, Horror Express, ended up looking like a bizarre fusion of murder mystery and sci-fi/horror thriller, a kind of The Thing from Another World (1951) meets Murder On the Orient Express.  Although Martín's forte was the spaghetti western, to which he contributed the memorable The Bounty Killer (1966), he also dipped his toes into many other genres, including giallo, horror, documentary and even musical.  For many years, Horror Express was overlooked but it has since acquired something of a cult following and is now one of the director's best-known films.

Horror Express is an odd, some might say demented, cinematic potpourri.  The presence of British horror stalwarts Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in an Edwardian setting immediately makes it feel like one of Hammer's period horror offerings, and Martín and his production team go to great lengths to capture the mood and style of Hammer's films.  However, the kind of horror (morbidly graphic, in the manner of Grand Guignol) is nearer to Italian giallo than British horror, veering tentatively towards the exploitation gore fests of Lucio Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti.  Martín takes the film's horror content seriously in the first half of the film and the scenes showing us the first glimpses of the lethal red-eyed, brain-sucking ape-like fiend are genuinely frightening.  But after the third gruesome killing an air of complacency sets in and things take on a far more comedic hue.  Telly Savalas (left over from Pancho Villa) is randomly thrown in so that he can play the comedy Cossack before he gets his brain sucked, and just when it looks as if the hysterical melodramatics are about to die down Martín suddenly turns his film into an insane zombie flick.

In narrative terms, Horror Express starts out well but soon falls apart and ultimately ends up as a confused muddle, with characters carelessly lobbed in more for comedic than dramatic effect.  A Rasputin-like monk (played somewhat too earnestly by Alberto de Mendoza, a habitué of the spaghetti western) soon becomes an irritating sideshow and you cringe when he suddenly switches (for no apparent reason) from a ranting fire-and-brimstone Christian to a boot-licking disciple of Satan.  Telly Savalas looks as if he has absolutely no idea what is going on around him - he seems to be performing some kind of solo act intended to gain him admission to a lunatic asylum, or at least a ten-year suspension from the acting profession.

With autopsies aplenty to perform, Cushing and Lee are kept busy - sawing open brains and dissecting eyeballs, you know the kind of thing - but around them there is a weird assortment of stock characters whose sole raison d'être is to be killed in the same grotesque manner, like ducks lined up in a shooting gallery.  Not much here to stimulate 'ze little grey cells'.  Horror Express is one of those unapologetically over-the-top romps which is clearly not intended to be taken seriously.  Taken for what it is - a mad joyride that revels in its cheap horror excesses and strange idea of humour - it can hardly fail to entertain.  More spine-chilling than what ends up on the screen is John Cacavas' eerie score, which lends a strange nightmarish lyricism to the film.  In any event, it's worth the price of the ticket just to hear Peter Cushing's riposte when he is asked "What if one of you is the monster?"  An offended Cushing retorts: "Monster?  We're British you know.

Film Synopsis

In the course of an expedition to China in 1906, Professor Saxton discovers the fossilised remains of a prehistoric ape which he believes may revolutionise theories of human evolution.  As the crate containing the creature is loaded aboard the Trans-Siberian Express a dead body is found nearby on the platform with its eyes strangely whited out.  A monk, Father Pujardov, promptly appears and insists there is evil in the crate.  After the train has set out on its long journey to Europe, Dr Wells, a scientific rival of Saxton, becomes intrigued by the crate and bribes a porter to examine what is inside.  Not long afterwards, the porter is found dead, his eyes again robbed of their irises.  Examining the brain of the dead man, Wells and Saxton find it to be uncannily smooth, as if its memories had all been removed.  The creature kills again and is finally shot dead by police Inspector Mirov.  Wells and Saxton realise that the prehistoric ape was only the host for a far deadlier extra-terrestrial life-form, one that feeds on its victim's memories to expand its intellect.  Having found a new host it is only a matter of time before the creature kills again...