All aboard! Horror Express is Hammer horror on rails.
Blending gothic chills with a surprisingly effective blend of science fiction and whodunit paranoia and set almost entirely aboard the Trans-Siberian Express, this cult classic pits Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing against an ancient alien threat, and each other as they attempt to unravel the mystery before the body count racks up.
When Professor Saxton (Lee), a British anthropologist, discovers a mysterious fossilised creature in a Manchurian cave he uses the Trans-Siberian Railway to transport his find to Europe, but his rival Dr. Wells (Cushing) is immediately suspicious, and with good cause. Before long, passengers and crew are dying in increasingly bizarre ways, with their eyes glazed over and their minds seemingly wiped clean. As the body count rises, it becomes clear that whatever was inside that crate isn’t just some prehistoric ape – it might be something far more dangerous.
The dynamic between Lee and Cushing is as magnetic as ever and while their usual rivalry is at play here, we get a more scientific stand-off than their more familiar Van Helsing-Dracula antagonism. Both characters are sceptical, prickly, and determined to prove their theories right, but as the threat intensifies, they’re forced into a begrudging partnership to stop it. It’s a joy to watch these two Hammer legends spar, their stiff-upper-lip Britishness cracking just a little as the horror mounts around them.
The film borrows more than a few pages from the Agatha Christie playbook. Imagine Murder on the Orient Express by way of John Carpenter’s The Thing. With passengers ranging from aristocrats to Russian military officers, there’s a strong mystery element to the horror as everyone becomes a suspect and the killer hides in plain sight, moving from body to body like a sinister cosmic parasite. Much like John Carpenter’s belatedly appreciated 1982 classic, Horror Express builds tension around the question of trust. No one knows who or what the creature is hiding inside, and paranoia spreads through the cramped train compartments.
For a film that’s essentially set in a series of narrow train carriages, Horror Express does a great job of using its claustrophobic space to create a pressure cooker atmosphere. Director Eugenio Martín makes every scene feel tense, with the walls closing in as the alien presence grows stronger. The practical effects, though dated by today’s standards, work well enough to get under your skin, particularly when we’re treated to the creature’s ability to drain knowledge from its victims, a process that leaves them with wide-open, clouded eyes that are as creepy as they are campy.
Where the film really wins points, though, is in its blend of horror and science fiction. What begins as a seemingly traditional monster flick takes a sharp left turn as we learn more about the creature. It’s an alien being, trapped on Earth for millions of years, possessing the ability to absorb knowledge – and life – from others. The eerie combination of ancient terror and space-age horror gives Horror Express an edge over the typical Hammer fare, pushing it into more cerebral territory as it asks bigger questions about the nature of intelligence and survival.
Of course, like any train journey, it isn’t without its delays. The pacing drags a little in the middle as the film tries to balance its various plot elements and there’s a lot going on: a killer on the loose, a bitter scientific rivalry, a tense military standoff led by Telly Savalas (playing a Cossack officer with scenery chewing gusto), and an exploration of consciousness. But if you can accept a bit of unevenness, Horror Express delivers enough creepy thrills and existential dread to make the ride worthwhile.
By the time we reach the final act, where the creature takes control of an entire trainload of corpses for a last-ditch attack, it’s clear that Horror Express is a film unafraid to push the envelope of gothic horror into strange, unexpected places. It may not have the reputation of some of Hammer’s more iconic titles, but its blend of high-concept sci-fi and horror makes it an underappreciated gem. After all, how can you resist the undeniable fun of watching Lee and Cushing, the redoubtable distinguished gentlemen of terror, facing down an alien menace with little more than an off-peak return ticket and their stiff upper lips?
