Horror Express

(1973)**1/2

Grand Moff Tarkin and Count Dooku, er, I mean Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee star in the low budget, but fun romp Horror Express. The film is set in 1906 and Lee plays an anthropologist who has discovered what he believes to be the “missing link” frozen in the wastelands of China. After excavating and boxing up his monster popsicle, Lee heads to Russia aboard a trans-Siberian express train with monster safely in storage. While on board Lee runs into his old friend, Peter Cushing, hooray! When Lee refuses to reveal the contents of his cargo, Cushing bribes a guard to sneak a peek in the box and report back to him. Looking into the box proves to be fatal for the guard, however, and the monster is unleashed, slaughtering all in his path. The glimpses we get of this missing link suggest that he most resembles Sasquatch from that Six Million Dollar Man episode that scared the crap out of me as a kid.

All good things come to an end. I think I’ve been putting this, my final review off for a while because I haven’t wanted to accept that Horrorthon 2005 has officially ended. How can 31 days and dozens of films about ghosts, witches, serial killers, and torture go by so quickly? As usual, the Horrorthon has only made me hungry for more. I actually started Horror Express in the middle of the month and it took me about 6 attempts to get through it. Don’t get me wrong I actually really enjoyed this film. I think what happened is that Horror Express was always slotted to be the second (or final) film that I was going to watch in the evening and by time I got around to it I would always fall asleep. There’s nothing worse than waking up to see the credits of a film rolling and the realization that you just slept though it. Well this happened 6 times! If for no other reason this film is a joy to watch just to see Cushing and Lee playing off each other in their heyday. Cushing offers the best line of the film when, after it is suggested that the monster aboard the train could be himself or Lee he a matter-of-factly states, “Monster? We’re British, you know”.