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Horror Express (1973)

   
Directed by: Edgar Wright

Written by: Simon Pegg & Edgar Wright

Starring:

Christopher Lee .... Professor Alexander Saxton
Peter Cushing .... Dr. Wells
Alberto de Mendoza .... Father Pujardov
Silvia Tortosa .... Countess Irina Petrovska
Julio Pena .... Inspector Mirov
Angel del Pozo .... Yevtushenko
Helga Line .... Natasha
Alice Reinhart .... Miss Jones
Jose Jaspe .... Conductor Koniev
George Rigaud .... Count Maryan Petrovski
Terry Savalas .... Captain Kazan

Release Date: Theatrical: December 3, 1973 (UK); January 1974 (USA)
Rating:

 

1906: In the icy caves of Northern China, Professor Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee) makes a remarkable discovery that could change the history of mankind!
He boards the Trans-Siberian Express with his chief rival, Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing) and his new discovery -- a frozen creature believed to be the Missing link in the evolution chain -- locked safely in a large wooden crate.
Desperate for a look at the new discovery, Dr. Wells pays a clerk to drill a peephole in the locked crate.
After the clerk disappears, everyone gets a look inside the crate containing the frozen creauture, but all they find is the dead clerk!
The hunt for the deadly monster now begins as more and more dead bodies begin to pile up. Saxton and Wells race to find the creature's weakness before it's too late, but how do you kill...

 

A very boring low budgeter that almost goes nowehere and was nearly bombed but it saved from being bombed a quarter way through with the posessions and the creature attacking by staring at others by killing them that way.
It was almost like a voodoo type horror/sci-fi type of film but when it gets interesting the film is nearly over.

The acting is fairly good with a local cast from Spain as well as some UK actors.
Christopher Lee
seems to pull through well playing the heroic type of character in the film by battling this creature and trying to discover where it came from.
The late UK celebrity Peter Cushing shined off well as an intelligent Doctor and has an energetic performance.
Julio Pena
really delivered too with his coldness to the film when he is posessed by the creature and is convincingly evil while doing so.
US character actor Terry Savalas is also believeable in his role playing a nasty Captain and is very memorable in his part even if it is only about 15 minutes long.
But the one who stands out the most is
Alberto de Mendoza as an overly religious monk as he shows great crazed expressions and character to his part and does well at being intense too.

A head of a corpse is sawed off revealed the corpses brain.
People faces become slightly bloodied after looking at the creature.

Edgar Wright made this film look terribly stale during the most part of the film as the dialogues between the cast members inside the train looked extremely bland but quarter way through the suspense picks up plus we see good shots on the locomotive chugging along.
We spot a good dark and creepy moment with small actor Victor Isreal when he is in the department where the monster is chained up in a box and then we get great camera shots on the monster's red eyes blaring at Isreal and then drops dead.
There are other dark and interesting moments with the creature attacking which is of course played by
Juan Olaguibel.
There is a cold dialogue which is performed by Julio Pena towards Alice Reinhart when he reveals his dark and terrifying secret towards her plus there is a great camera shot on Pena during this moment.
We have a real vicious moment that involves supporting US character actor Terry Savalas doing his cruel actions towards the other cast members especially with A
lberto de Mendoza when he is being whipped which looks fairly good.
We spot great camera shots on both Pena and Mendoza with their red eyes glowing while killing others by staring at them.
The best dialogue is with between Christopher Lee and Mendoza when Lee's character holds a shotgun at him asking where he is from as Mendoza's character is posessed by the creature. Wright made that moment very special giving it a sci-fi element as well as a horror element.
There's a shot on the train falling off a cliff which look terribly cheesy and phony.

The classical music in the film by John Cacavus was extremely toned out and shaky plus sometimes it sounded a little western like.