Chilling Classics Cthursday: HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

Spanish delight Horror Express chugga choo-chooed into my heart during that mysterious time known as "2010." I didn't watch the Mill Creek version at the time, but I'm sure the quality was about on par with the Chilling Classics edition: it was one of those $0.79 DVDs you find at your Dollar Trees and your Odd Lots. Essentially they're Chilling Classics-grade films sold individually in cardboard sleeves, real bargain bin stuff, right down to the muddy transfers. Well let me tell you that even under such circumstances it was love at first squint between me and Horror Express, and we've renewed our vows to each other many times over the years known as "since 2010." But I won't lie to you: now I feast my eyes solely on the Arrow Blu-ray over any bargain bin editions, even when it's Chilling Classic Cthursday. Go figure!

I've written about this movie before--right after that initial viewing--in more synopsis-y detail, and covered it in episode 167 of Gaylords of Darkness a couple of years ago, so hey: If you want more narrative tidbits and expansive insights, check those out. As for the here and now, I'm just a girl standing sitting in front of a blog telling you some of the reasons why I love and adore this movie about a frozen fossil ape-man who thaws out on a trans-Siberian train in 1906 and causes deathly havoc.

-- It's about a frozen fossil ape-man who thaws out on a trans-Siberian train in 1906 and causes deathly havoc! What's not to love about that?

-- That's only the start of it. He is so much more than a frozen fossil ape-man! He is what Dolly Parton sang about in "Coat of Many Colors," okay? And also what Chaka Khan and Whitney Houston sang about in "I'm Every Woman." He contains multitudes. 

-- The "deathly havoc" he wreaks includes causing people to bleed out of all of their head holes as their eyes turn white. It's so cool.

-- Yes, that is Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing in that pic up top. Two of the greatest tastes to ever be tasted together! It's especially nice to see them together in Horror Express because here they are sorta rivals but mostly colleagues instead of confined to their usual vampire-vampire hater relationship. Also I love it when Christopher Lee has a moustache.

-- Eventually Telly friggin Savalas shows up as a crazed Cossack and he just...sounds like Telly Savalas and I love it because he's really in his own film here.

-- The train is clearly a model train in some shots and it only serves to make everything better

-- Model or no, this is a train full of characters, baby! These folks have all come aboard: 

-- a mad monk who pulls what we political pundits* call "a JD Vance" as he goes from denouncing the monster as Satanic to worshipping it

-- a couple of sheltered aristocrats who I bet are probably swingers

-- a hot international spy, who is just sort of a spy for no reason and it's the best

-- a doctor's assistant who strikes so many blows for women's rights and has the power of a good...mmm, three to four Julia Sugarbaker monoologues

-- I dig the "1906 science" of it all. Many autopsies are performed and we get many a dubious insight, like pee is stored in the balls memories are stored in brain wrinkles and visions are preserved in eye fluid.

-- Horror Express chugs through many a subgenre. It's a period piece structured like a slasher at times, it's a monster movie, it's a body-hopping sci-fi flick, it's got touches of an Agatha Christie-inspired mystery, it's got Hammer vibes, and it even busts out some zombies. Again, she is every woman!

-- Though this movie is clearly ludicrous, the cast plays it completely straight (even Savalas, in his Savalas-centric way) and it's the only reason why, as "out there" as it all is, it kinda works. 

Horror Express is simply theee perfect Saturday afternoon Creature Double Feature monster kid movie, and like me, you can cram that notion right into one of your brain wrinkles.

*people who read headlines