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7
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6 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Guest
Review by Rod
Barnett |
Horror
Express
opens in the early 1900s with Sir Alexander Saxton
(Christopher Lee) discovering the fossilized remains
of a "missing link" in a cave in China.
Sensing the importance of his find, Saxon has
it boxed up and loaded onto the Trans-Siberian
Express for a return to Europe. Trouble starts
before the prize archeological discovery has left
the train station. A thief attempting to get into
the crate is found dead, his eyes as white as
a boiled egg. On the train Saxton is joined by
his scientific rival, Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing),
and a multitude of other characters. There's Pujardov,a
crazed monk who claims there is something evil
about the crated fossil; the monk's employer,
Count Petrovski, a wealthy Polish nobleman; Irina,
the count's sexy wife; Inspector Mirov, who tries
to puzzle out the series of strange deaths on
the train; a chess playing engineer who is also
a burgeoning rocket scientist; and a beautiful
female spy trying to purloin the secret of a new
type of steel from the Count! In short order the
fossil comes back to life and kills several people,
leaving the victims with white eyes and smoothed
brains. From these anatomical clues Wells and
Saxton surmise that the creature must be able
to absorb the memories and experiences of its
victims, killing them in the process.
Just when the film seems set
to be a "beast on the loose" movie,
Inspector Mirov shoots the monster dead and is
possessed by the alien intelligence that's hidden
within the creature for two million years. Not
suspecting this turn of events, Wells and Saxton
are surprised when a fresh corpse turns up with
telltale white eyes. Then a boorish Cossack commander
(Telly Savalas) stops and boards the train, intent
on conducting his own military investigation.
Horror
Express
is one of the most deliriously fun bits of sci-fi
tinged horror nonsense to ever come out of Europe.
It was mostly overlooked at the time of its original
release and treated terribly afterwards, which
is a shame. With a game cast, a lively script
and an interesting setting, director Eugenio Martin
creates a fast, effective fright-fest that's just
smart enough to know when to distract us with
another plot twist. Many critics have said that
the film's script doesn't hold up if examined
closely, and that is true. But who cares? Horror
Express throws so many ideas and characters
at the audience that it's almost impossible to
nail down the logic lapses until well after the
credits have run and how often can you say that
about a Euro-Cult genre piece. Just as you have
adjusted to one strange idea, another one pops
up which inevitably dovetails into another, etc.
The
film is exciting and interesting from beginning
to end and almost never shows its very modest
budget. Most of the characters are very well drawn
with a minimum of exposition and a great deal
of smart acting giving just the right amount of
nuance. With a cast this large it would've been
easy to lose track of one or more people but the
script gives each person at least one small scene
to establish themselves. Later, when the creature
menaces them we aren't just watching a simple
stalk and kill sequence. Since we've gotten to
know a little about the characters, their peril
is that much more effective. This film is a fine
example of using a claustrophobic set to maximum
atmospheric effect. The cramped hallways and perpetually
rocking train cars start to feel smaller and more
coffin-like as we speed along the tracks. By the
end, the darkness of the night has become such
a natural state that the sunlight on snow in the
final scene brings a sigh of relief. The escape
from darkness into light is the perfect image
to close the film on.
Of course, any horror film
that manages to cast both Cushing and Lee has
gotten off to the right start —
this movie makes the rare move of writing them
as friends instead of enemies. It is one of the
better pleasures of the film to see the two great
horror stars as heroes working together trying
to understand and stop the murderous beast. Even
though Lee and Cushing starred in over 20 films
together they were almost always antagonists,
or at least kept apart for much of the running
time. Here they share many scenes and take great
advantage of the wit in the dialog, playing off
each other wonderfully. Cushing gets some great
(intentionally) funny lines which he delivers
with relish; Lee becomes a bit of an action hero
near the movie's climax. The only role I can think
of that allowed Lee to be such a strong hero is
the wonderful The Devil
Rides Out and his performance here stands
up very well in comparison. These actors made
better films both together and separately, but
few of them were as much fun as Horror
Express.
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Horror
Express,
much like its alien monster, has had many incarnations.
There's probably not a single cheap-jack video company
that hasn't released a version of this movie on
tape. For nearly two decades you could count on
seeing EP speed copies of Horror
Express right next to those cheap tapes of
Night Of The Living Dead
and Carnival Of Souls
in every video bargain bin in the world. These tapes
all had one thing in common: they looked and sounded
like crap. Then there was a DVD release of the film
— it too was awful,
causing many to doubt whether there'd ever
be a good-looking version of the movie. I began
to wonder if there were any solid copies of the
film in existence. Then along came Image's Euroshock
Collection DVD release last year and there was
much rejoicing! Properly letterboxed at 1.66:1 and
looking sharper than I have ever seen it, this is
a wonderful presentation of the film. Gone is the
murkiness that seemed to make every other scene
on the train take place in the dark. Gone is the
over-cropped image that hid vital plot information
off the television screen. Gone is the desire to
twist the brightness knob on your TV so far to the
right that it breaks off in your hand!
But I
digress. I consider Image's disc almost a restoration
of this movie, as all the previous video releases
are nearly unwatchable. This print of the film is
not without some flaws, but I'm willing to overlook
occasional scratches and speckles when all evidence
points to this being as good as we will ever see.
The DVD is pretty bare with only a separate "music
and sound effects only" audio track really
qualifying as an extra. The film is presented in
both English and Spanish; there are brief filmographies
of Lee and Cushing. The case's liner notes by Marc
Walkow are very good and strike a nice balance between
behind the scenes information and critical examination
of the film itself. This is a good DVD of a solid
movie and it's the only proper way to see this fun
tale. If you're into Euro-Cult or just a fan of
Cushing and Lee you can do a lot worse than picking
this one up.
7/02/02 |
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