![Curse of Frankenstein, The [Blu-ray]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81E3qP+pesL._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
![I Walked with a Zombie / The Seventh Victim: Produced by Val Lewton (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71O+O2E135L._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
![Theater of Blood (Special Edition) [Blu-ray]](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81ZrMcf7I4S._AC_UL165_SR165,165_.jpg)
This review is for the Blu-Ray edition of Horror Express released by Arrow Video on February 12, 2019.
BLU-RAY: This release is a new 2K restoration from the original film elements. My opinion is that the picture is very good for a film of it's type. It's a very nice transfer and I didn't notice imperfections. The colors looks good. I doubt this movie will ever look better than this.
EXTRA'S:
- Reversible Sleeve: There is new art made by artist Graham Humphreys. The artwork is double sided so you get your choice of two case covers.
- 32 page booklet - This is a very nicely done booklet with pictures, advertising material from the movies as well as all kinds of information about this release.
- Audio Commentary with Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
- Featurette - 'Ticket to Die': Filmmaker Steve Haberman gives his views (8:31)
- Featurette - 'Night Train to Nowhere': Filmmaker Ted Newsom gives his views on 'Horror Express' and Producer Bernard Gordon (15:08)
- Featurette - 'Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express': An archival interview with the director, Eugenio Martin (14:03)
- Featurette - 'Notes from the Black List': Producer Bernard Gordon talks about Hollywood during the McCarthy era. (30:30)
- Featurette - 'Telly and Me': An archival interview with the Composer, John Cacavas (8:09)
- Introduction by Fangoria journalist Chris Alexander: This is the introduction Alexander made for Severin Films (6:50)
- Original theatrical trailer
- Subtitles
*****WARNING - LOTS OF SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT*****
PLOT/SYNOPSIS: The movie opens with a narrator reading an account of events by the Royal Geographical Society as told by the leader, Alexander Saxton, in the province of Szechuan, China in the year of 1906.
Alexander Saxton finds a body in a cave and has his team retrieve it and put it in a box. The box is loaded onto a train at Shanghai that is destined for Russia. Saxton discovers that the train does not have his reservation and that the train is full. Dr. Wells and Dr. Jones greet him at the station. Dr. Wells bribes his way onto the train.
Meanwhile, an Asian man picks the lock holding Saxton's cargo and is discovered dead minutes later. His body is right next to the cargo and has solid white eyes. The Captain of the Guard shows up and asks Saxton to come with him. Saxton's ticket is found. A priest claims the dead body has the mark of the devil. The priest tells everyone "where there is evil, there is no place for the cross". Saxton's cargo is loaded onto the train. Saxton checks the cargo that has a plate that opens on the side of the box. Wells says that he heard something alive in the box and Saxton tells him that he is mistaken and that what's in the box hasn't eaten in two million years. The Countess Irina Petrovski of Poland walks in with her dog to store her valuables. The dog is disturbed by Saxton's cargo. Wells bribes a worker to drill a hole in Saxton's cargo. A woman walks into Wells' compartment and asks him to help her. She has no ticket. Saxton walks into the compartment. He has a ticket for the same compartment as Wells. The girl says she thinks they can all get along. The cargo hold worker removes some screws from Saxton's cargo and takes a look in. He walks away and a hand reaches out of the cargo box, grabs a nail and unlocks the padlock. As it starts to remove the chains from the box, the worker comes over and grabs the chain. He sees the face of the being in the box and it has red glowing eyes. His eyes, nose and mouth have blood pour out of them and he dies. The being opens the door to the box. In her compartment, the Countess is planning on impressing Saxton and Pujardov is disturbed.
The head of security, Inspector Mirov, demands that Saxton give him the key to his cargo box after the baggage man goes missing. Wells admits that he might have caused the trouble. Saxton refuses and throws the key out the window. Security breaks open the chains with an axe. The dead baggage worker is found dead in the box. Inspector Mirov arrests Saxon and sends his men to search the train for the creature. The creature hides in a compartment with children but does not harm them. When a guard enters the room, he kills him. Another guard finds the body by the doorway to the exit of the train.
Meanwhile, in the dining car, Wells is eating with the distressed girl that showed up in his cabin. It turns out that she is a spy. The engineer shows up and says he believes he met the girl at the Governor's Palace. She tells him he is mistaken. When fish is brought for dinner, Wells notices that the eye is white and the engineer tells him that's because it is boiled. Mirov comes and gets Dr. Wells at dinner and he goes and gets Dr. Jones to assist him with the autopsy. The countess joins Saxton for dinner in the car he is being held in. They discover that the brain is smooth. Wells theorizes that could mean that his memories have been removed.
The creature, who has been riding outside of the train enters the room the autopsy was conducted in and examines the body. The female spy enters the baggage room and breaks into a safe. The creature attacks and kills her. Wells, wondering what happened to her, goes looking for her. He opens the door to the baggage room and is grabbed by the creature. The head of security comes by and shoots the creature through the door. They can now see he has one glowing red eye. He holds the head of security with his gaze and blood starts to come out of his face. He gets off one more shot, killing the creature and passes out. He wakes up in a car a short while later and Saxton comes to his car. He tells Saxton that the girl was an international spy. After her autopsy, her brain was smooth as well. Saxton tells him that the creature seems to be absorbing the knowledge of everyone it kills. Security brings in the jewels that were on the creature and the head of security immediately recognizes them for that they are. Pujardov walks in and tells them that the unholy one is among them. A religious engraving falls on the floor.
Saxton, Jones and Wells take the eye from the creature and examine it. They take fluid from the eye and put it under a microscope. The fluid seems to have images of the last thing it saw. They take more fluid and see dinosaurs. The countess walks in and they see an image of Earth from space. They show the countess and the countess invites Pudjarov to look and he calls it 'The Holy Writ'. He asks where they got it those images and they tell him and he says it 'The Eye of Satan'. Pudjardov grabs the eye and runs out of the compartment. He hides in the baggage room and Dr. Jones enters. The Inspector walks in and asks Dr. Jones if she is looking for the thief. She offers him a reward for finding the eye. He asks and she tells him who else has seen the pictures of Earth. He reveals that he is now the creature and kills Dr. Jones while Pujardov is watching from his hiding space. Pujardov gives the yes to the creature and he promptly destroys it.
The passengers are now panicked and want to get off the train. The creature, still head of security, does not allow the train to be stopped or for anybody to leave. The creature now targets Dr. Wells, Saxton and the Countess. The creature goes to the telegraph room and stops a message from being sent and kills the operator. While the creature is disposing the body, Pujardov walks in and asks it to let him serve it. Saxton tells the Inspector/creature that he needs to examine its eyes after examining everyone else's. The engineer says that they should test for radiation and X-rays. Saxton says that nobody should ever be left alone. Everyone must pair off.
Saxton finds the crumpled message that wasn't sent in the telegraph office. In Russia, they get a message saying that the train will be there in 14 minutes. The operator tells Captain Kazan (Telly Savalas) the message is in code. Captain Kazan tells the operator to send the train a message.
The Inspector goes to the engineer and asks him if gravity could be overcome. The engineer tells him about proposed rockets. He attacks and kills the engineer. The Inspector goes to Saxton's compartment. Saxton theorizes that some form of intelligence came to the Earth from another planet. It survived by entering the body and brain of an Earth creature. He says that that being may have entered the body of the fossil he found. He believes that after the Inspector shot the creature that it transferred it's intelligence into another host. The body of the engineer is found and the woman who was with him claims that she was sleeping when he was killed.
Pujardov takes the Inspector to the Count's cabin where he asks him about temperatures and steel. The train pulls into a station in Russia. Cossacks led by Captain Kazan board and assume control of the train. He sends the Count and Countess to their rooms. He tells the Inspector that everyone is under arrest including him. Saxton turns down the lights in the train and the Inspector's eyes are glowing red. It tries to get away but Kazan shoots him several times as he exits the car. Pujardov goes to him and tells him to transfer into his body which it does. The Cossacks shoot their guns into the next car why the passengers retreat. The creature/Pujardov appears at their rear and kills them all, including Kazan.
Pujardov enters the Count and Countesses car and kills the Count. Saxton enters the room and Pujardov/Creature tells Saxton that he is a form of energy occupying the body he is in. He says he is from another galaxy and got left behind by accident. Saxton tells him he can't let him go and the being says that he can help out the human race by all sorts of means. He says "Wait" and suddenly all the dead bodies on the train begin to move. The Count, seemingly blind gets up and fires his gun after the Countess yells to warn Saxton. They run out of the car. They are attacked by the dead soldiers who blindly strike at them. The creature goes to the Engine car and sets it at full speed. Saxton and the Countess go toward the rear where they join the other passengers. They separates the cars.
At the switching station ahead, a message is received from Moscow telling them to switch the rails, thereby derailing it. The train goes over a cliff while the caboose, with the other passengers, stops just in time.
PRODUCTION COMMENTS: 'Horror Express' was released in 1972 and was produced by a joint venture between the British Company, Benmar Productions and the Spanish Granada Films.
- The movie was originally called 'Panic on the Trans-Siberian'.
- 'Horror Express' was shot in Madrid, Spain and it had a budget of $300,000.
- The train used was the same one that was used in 'Nicholas and Alexandra'.
- The idea for Telly Savalas being in the picture came from Producer, Bernard Gordon, who cast him as the lead in his previous movie, 'Pancho Villa'.
OTHER COMMENTS:
WAIT!... WHAT?!?
-"IT'S ALIVE, IT MUST BE!!!": This is one of those "Wait... What?!?" moments...
"What was in there?"
"I told you, a fossil. Part-Ape, Part-Man. It lived two million years ago."
"Are you telling me that an ape that lived two million years ago, got out of that crate, killed a baggage man and put him in there, then locked everything up neat and tidy and got away?"
"Yes, I am"
OK... So... Perhaps there might be other possibilities? Like, perhaps somebody on the train killed the baggage man and took the contents of the box? Does that sound like I'm taking a shot in the dark? Or would first choice still be a two million year old fossil did it?
-SOLD!!!: After the situation I just explained in the comment above this one. The Head of Security tells his police to lock up Saxton (He got that part right as Saxton would be the first and prime suspect) but then shows us that he bought the story... hook, line and sinker... by telling his men to "search the train and find it, whatever it is, and destroy it.
-DESTROY ALL MONSTERS: As usual... security, police, military, have no actual interest in scientific knowledge or historical value. He doesn't even think about telling his men to capture it alive because who would care what a two million year old descendant of humans could tell us. Just "destroy it" says the head of security to his men.
-BUT, HEY, THERE'S THAT: "I want this kept quiet! I don't want to panic the passengers". At least he was considerate!
RASPUTIN ON THE HORROR EXPRESS? - Pujardov is obviously supposed to be 'Rasputin'. He travels with Royalty from Russia.
I GUESS THEY HADN'T THOUGHT OF THAT YET (EITHER THAT OR THEY HADN'T RUINED ENOUGH FOSSILS YET): If you find the remains of a living creature that still has some skin and other 'guts' on it, it would probably be a good idea to store it in a refrigerated/ice box when transporting from it's origination of frozen ice. It's 1906 but I think they would have knowns this even by that time. But hey, it's a movie... right?
SHOULD HAVE GONE WITH KAZAN WHILE IT HAD THE CHANCE: The alien being, for all it's intelligence, wasn't that intelligent. It easily could have switched to Captain Kazan after his fight on the train and nobody would have known. He'd then be the commander.
WHY NOT TRANSFER INTO A SINGLE CELL CREATURE? The alien being says that it had been alive for milliions of years while transferring itself to all sorts of creatures. This includes protozoans. These are one celled orgnisms. If it could do that, then why not just jump around from tiny microscopic creatures until it gets to where it needs to go? Or at the least, it could have easily escaped.
NOT SURE HOW YOU KILL WHAT'S ALREADY DEAD?: I didn't think the part with the creature raising the dead was well thought out. How do you kill something that's already dead (I know, I know, shoot it in the head like a zombie). At points Saxton 'killed' the zombies with his sword. How? Do they still bleed to death? Then later we see them rise again. So what caused the zombies to go down to begin with? This makes no sense.
RATINGS/CONCLUSIONS: I think this is a very entertaining movie. It moves and is never slow. It packs a lot of side plot lines into it. Very well done.
WHY NOT JUST ASK?: Ultimately, this movie suffers the same problems that many alien invasion movies have. That is "Why not just ask?" Why did the alien creature have to murder so many people. Why didn't it just possess one person when nobody was looking and let that be the end of it? This makes no sense. If it needed help. Why not just ask? Also, consider that it was light years more advanced than Earthlings and by it's own comments, it had a lot to offer.
Blu-Ray: 9/10 - It's as good as it's going to get.
Extra's: 10/10 - Loaded, excellent
SFX: 5/10 - Just OK, could be better with obviously a bigger budget.
Plot: - 7/10 If you can look past the zaniness of the idea's, it's a pretty good story
Overall: 9/10 or 5 stars - Excellent release
| Additional Multi-Format options | Edition | Discs | Price | New from | Used from |
|
Multi-Format
November 29, 2011 "Please retry" | — | 2 |
—
| — | $38.00 |
Watch Instantly with 
| Rent | Buy |
Customers who bought this item also bought
Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1
- Nosferatu 4K Ultra HD Digital 4K UHDLily-Rose DeppBlu-ray$11.51 shippingThis title will be released on February 18, 2025.
- I Walked with a Zombie / The Seventh Victim: Produced by Val Lewton (The Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]Val LewtonBlu-ray$11.55 shipping
Entertaining grab bag of sci-fi / horror tropes starring the genre's most enduring couple
Horror Express (1972) cribs two of Hammer Studios most famous stars (Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee) for a wild sci-fi / horror tale set aboard a trans-Asiatic passenger train carrying some deadly cargo. Unbeknownst to the two British scientists, the frozen ape-man they brought along for the ride is actually a body-swapping alien that absorbs the intelligence of anyone who stares into its red, glowing eye. As the bodies pile up, the list of suspects increases as well, turning this Spanish-produced quickie into a fun Agatha Christie-inspired "who-dun-it."Shot on leftover sets that give the film a big budget boost, Horror Express has all the tongue-in-cheek inventiveness that Hammer films of the period lacked. And there's a healthy sense of humor, director Eugenio Martin doesn't shy away from the disturbing images (bleeding eyeballs, gruesome skullcaps, etc) genre fans expect. In fact, his film is such an entertaining grab bag of ideas that even the incredulous parts - like the monster's eye fluid retaining images of a brontosaurus - just add to the fun. Lee and Cushing seem to be in on the joke from the beginning, faring far better here than in other horror efforts of the era. A late cameo performance from Telly Savalas sends things a bit off the rails, but not enough to spoil the trip.Arrow Video's Blu-ray comes with a brand new 2K restoration, commentary with Stephen Jones and Kim Newman and collector's booklet with new writing on the film. The other extras are all ported over from the previous Blu-ray / DVD combo released from Severin a few years back, all except for a 1973 interview with Peter Cushing.
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2025
- Reviewed in the United States on December 30, 2015
Top reviews from other countries
-
-
S. EwaldReviewed in Germany on June 14, 2017
Ein sehr guter Gruselfilm, endlich auf Blu Ray
- A GurneyReviewed in the United Kingdom on January 3, 2012
Imported from Amazon.com
