Horror Express

In 1906 a frozen humanoid fossil found in Manchuria is loaded onto the Trans-Siberian Express. Saxton, the English anthropologist who brought the crate, and his rival aboard, Doctor Wells, realise the thing inside is not dead. The creature drains its victims' memories and turns their eyes white. Then a Cossack officer boards and matters get worse. The film is not interested in the monster. It is interested in enclosure: the story takes place entirely on a moving train and nobody can get off. The memory-draining is worked through odd ideas, such as a dead victim's memories appearing as images during an autopsy. The form is cheap and resourceful: narrow corridors, steam, red light. For the exteriors and miniatures, train models built earlier for the production of Pancho Villa were reused. Eugenio Martín directed; a Spanish-British co-production shot in Spain. Christopher Lee plays Saxton and Peter Cushing plays Wells. The pair are familiar from Hammer, and here for once they are not enemies but colleagues who cannot stand each other. Telly Savalas enters late as the Cossack officer and steals the film. Who it is for: viewers who like seventies European horror and the Lee and Cushing pairing. Who it is not for: anyone after consistency. The creature's rules keep changing and in the final section the film jumps from science fiction to zombie picture.