Horror Express
Encyclopedia
Horror Express, also known as Pánico en el Transiberiano/Panic on the Trans-Siberian Express, is a 1972 Spanish
horror film
directed by Eugenio Martin, produced by Bernard Gordon
written by Arnaud d'Usseau
and Julian Zimet (credited as Julian Halevy), and starring Christopher Lee
, Peter Cushing
and Telly Savalas
.
The film is now in the public domain.
), is an English anthropologist
returning to Europe
by Trans-Siberian Express, through the frozen wastes
from China
to Moscow
. With him is the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature that he has discovered in a cave in Manchuria
and hopes is the missing link
in the evolutionary chain
. Also aboard by coincidence is Doctor Wells (Peter Cushing
), Saxton's compatriot, rival and Royal Society
colleague.
A mysterious death occurs before the steam train departs Shanghai
– a thief, having picked the lock to break into the crate, is found dead on the platform bleeding from the eyes, which have turned opaque white. A Rasputin-like monk (Alberto de Mendoza
), the spiritual advisor to a Polish
Count and Countess waiting to board the train, proclaims the contents of the crate to be evil. Saxton furiously dismisses such superstition
and an army platoon facilitates the loading and departure. Saxton's eagerness to keep his scientific find secret has aroused the curiosity and suspicion of Doctor Wells, who bribes a porter to investigate the crate. As the man does, he is killed by the glowing red gaze of the ape-like creature within, which then escapes its confines using lock-picking skills...
The murders continue while the beast roams the moving train, its victims being found with the same opaque, white eyes. An autopsy
leads Wells and his assistant Miss Jones to hypothesise that the brains of the victims are being drained of memories and knowledge. When the reincarnate fossil is gunned down by police Inspector Mirov, an authority in charge of the train, the threat seems to have been vanquished. Saxton and Wells discover images retained in liquid removed from inside the eyeball of the fossil's corpse, images that reveal a prehistoric Earth and a view of the planet seen from space. They deduce that the real threat is somehow a formless alien creature that had inhabited the body of the fossil and now resides within the Inspector. The monk, sensing the greater presence inside the Inspector and believing it to be that of Satan
, renounces his holy faith to plead allegiance.
When news of the murders on the train is wired to the Russia
n authorities, the train is stopped and an intimidating Cossack
officer, Captain Kazan (Telly Savalas
), boards with a small group of his men. Kazan believes the train is housing rebels and is only convinced of the alien's existence when Mirov is discovered to be the creature, which has absorbed the memories of scientist Miss Jones, an engineer and others, and seeks the Polish Count's metallurgist knowledge too, in order to achieve escape from the Earth
. Fatally shot by Kazan, Mirov manages to stagger away and the alien transfers itself to the crazed monk.
The passengers flee into the trailing freight car while the monk murders Kazan and his men, and then the Count, draining all their minds. Rescuing the Countess, Saxton manages to hold the monk at gunpoint under a light – as he has realised that bright light in its host's eyes will prevent the entity from draining minds or transferring to another body. The creature/monk explains that it is in reality an energy being that had travelled from another galaxy
with others of its kind, but been marooned. It existed alone for millions of years in the bodies of protozoa
, fish and other animals to survive, but cannot live outside a living being longer than a few moments. The creature/monk begs to be spared, tempting Saxton with its accumulated and advanced alien knowledge – but by this ruse manages to escape, by suddenly animating the dead body of the Count.
Saxton and the Countess flee the creature, but it now resurrects all of its victims as white-eyed zombie
s. These undead chase Saxton and the Countess back to the rear car, where the survivors have taken refuge. They work desperately to uncouple the caboose from the rest of the train, as the Russian government sends a telegraph to a dispatch station ahead, instructing them to destroy the train by sending it down a dead-end spur. The switchhouse follows this order in the belief the country is at war. The creature/monk assumes the train's engineer position to take over the train, which enters the spur leading to a deep ravine. Saxton and Wells manage separate the last car from the rest of the train, which goes over the cliff to a fiery wreck below, presumably killing the creature and its resurrected dead. The freight car rolls precariously to the end of the track, where the survivors witness the fire consuming the train and the unnatural inhabitants within.
between 1971–1972, produced on a low budget of $300,000 with the luxury of having three familiar genre actors in the lead. The film was co-produced by American filmwriter/producer Bernard Gordon
, who had collaborated with Martin on the 1972 film Pancho Villa
(which featured Savalas in the title role). Though it was believed that as Bernard Gordon had acquired the train model used in Nicholas and Alexandra
and he commissioned a script for its use, Gordon denied it, saying the model had been constructed for Pancho Villa. Filmmakers used the mock-up from Pancho Villa as the interior for all train cars during production since no further room was available on stage. All scenes within each train car were shot consecutively, the set then modified and shot for the next car.
The film had sequences shot at the 1892 Madrid Atocha railway station designed by Alberto de Palacio Elissagne
, who collaborated with Gustave Eiffel
.
Securing Lee and Cushing was a coup for Gordon, since it lent a certain atmosphere reminiscent of Hammer Films
, many of which starred both of the actors. However, when Cushing arrived in Madrid to begin work on the picture, he was still distraught over the recent death of his wife, and announced to Gordon that he could not do the film. With Gordon desperate over the idea of losing one of his important stars, Lee stepped in and put Cushing at ease simply by talking to his great friend about some of their previous work together. Cushing changed his mind and stayed on.
Like all the Italian and Spanish films of the period, Horror Express was filmed mostly without sound, with effects and voices dubbed into the film later. Lee, Cushing and Savalas all provided their own voices for the English
market.
/science fiction
elements. The most obvious reference would be the short story "Who Goes There?
", which had previously been the inspiration for the 1951 film The Thing from Another World
. "Who Goes There?" also dealt with an alien who could assume the form of human beings, threatening an isolated group of people and interested in building a spacecraft so that it could escape the Earth.
was where the film fared worst, both critically and in terms of box office revenue. The film was received more positively in other markets where the audience was more familiar with low-budget horror films, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, and became a cult favorite when it ran quite extensively on television in the 1970s and 1980s.
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Eugenio Martin, produced by Bernard Gordon
Bernard Gordon
Bernard Gordon was an American writer and producer. For much of his 27-year career, he toiled in obscurity, prevented from taking screen credit by the Hollywood Blacklist. Among his best-known works are screenplays for Flesh and Fury, Earth vs...
written by Arnaud d'Usseau
Arnaud d'Usseau
Arnaud d'Usseau was a playwright and B-movie screenwriter who is perhaps best remembered today for his collaboration with Dorothy Parker on the play The Ladies of the Corridor.-Career:...
and Julian Zimet (credited as Julian Halevy), and starring Christopher Lee
Christopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
, Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
and Telly Savalas
Telly Savalas
Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
.
The film is now in the public domain.
Plot
In 1906, Professor Alexander Saxton (Christopher LeeChristopher Lee
Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee, CBE, CStJ is an English actor and musician. Lee initially portrayed villains and became famous for his role as Count Dracula in a string of Hammer Horror films...
), is an English anthropologist
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
returning to Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
by Trans-Siberian Express, through the frozen wastes
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
from China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
to Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...
. With him is the frozen remains of a primitive humanoid creature that he has discovered in a cave in Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
and hopes is the missing link
Missing Link
Missing link is a nonscientific term for any transitional fossil, especially one connected with human evolution; see Transitional fossil - Missing links and List of transitonal fossils - Human evolution.Missing Link may refer to:...
in the evolutionary chain
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
. Also aboard by coincidence is Doctor Wells (Peter Cushing
Peter Cushing
Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the handsome but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally...
), Saxton's compatriot, rival and Royal Society
Royal Society
The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, known simply as the Royal Society, is a learned society for science, and is possibly the oldest such society in existence. Founded in November 1660, it was granted a Royal Charter by King Charles II as the "Royal Society of London"...
colleague.
A mysterious death occurs before the steam train departs Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
– a thief, having picked the lock to break into the crate, is found dead on the platform bleeding from the eyes, which have turned opaque white. A Rasputin-like monk (Alberto de Mendoza
Alberto de Mendoza
Alberto de Mendoza is actor in Argentine cinema, who has appeared in some 114 films between 1930 and 2005 spanning eight decades....
), the spiritual advisor to a Polish
Poles
thumb|right|180px|The state flag of [[Poland]] as used by Polish government and diplomatic authoritiesThe Polish people, or Poles , are a nation indigenous to Poland. They are united by the Polish language, which belongs to the historical Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages of Central Europe...
Count and Countess waiting to board the train, proclaims the contents of the crate to be evil. Saxton furiously dismisses such superstition
Superstition
Superstition is a belief in supernatural causality: that one event leads to the cause of another without any process in the physical world linking the two events....
and an army platoon facilitates the loading and departure. Saxton's eagerness to keep his scientific find secret has aroused the curiosity and suspicion of Doctor Wells, who bribes a porter to investigate the crate. As the man does, he is killed by the glowing red gaze of the ape-like creature within, which then escapes its confines using lock-picking skills...
The murders continue while the beast roams the moving train, its victims being found with the same opaque, white eyes. An autopsy
Autopsy
An autopsy—also known as a post-mortem examination, necropsy , autopsia cadaverum, or obduction—is a highly specialized surgical procedure that consists of a thorough examination of a corpse to determine the cause and manner of death and to evaluate any disease or injury that may be present...
leads Wells and his assistant Miss Jones to hypothesise that the brains of the victims are being drained of memories and knowledge. When the reincarnate fossil is gunned down by police Inspector Mirov, an authority in charge of the train, the threat seems to have been vanquished. Saxton and Wells discover images retained in liquid removed from inside the eyeball of the fossil's corpse, images that reveal a prehistoric Earth and a view of the planet seen from space. They deduce that the real threat is somehow a formless alien creature that had inhabited the body of the fossil and now resides within the Inspector. The monk, sensing the greater presence inside the Inspector and believing it to be that of Satan
Satan
Satan , "the opposer", is the title of various entities, both human and divine, who challenge the faith of humans in the Hebrew Bible...
, renounces his holy faith to plead allegiance.
When news of the murders on the train is wired to the Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
n authorities, the train is stopped and an intimidating Cossack
Cossack
Cossacks are a group of predominantly East Slavic people who originally were members of democratic, semi-military communities in what is today Ukraine and Southern Russia inhabiting sparsely populated areas and islands in the lower Dnieper and Don basins and who played an important role in the...
officer, Captain Kazan (Telly Savalas
Telly Savalas
Aristotelis "Telly" Savalas was an American film and television actor and singer, whose career spanned four decades. Best known for playing the title role in the 1970s crime drama Kojak, Savalas was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Birdman of Alcatraz...
), boards with a small group of his men. Kazan believes the train is housing rebels and is only convinced of the alien's existence when Mirov is discovered to be the creature, which has absorbed the memories of scientist Miss Jones, an engineer and others, and seeks the Polish Count's metallurgist knowledge too, in order to achieve escape from the Earth
Rocketry
Rocketry may refer to:* The design, construction, launching and operation of rockets** The hobbyist or professional use of model rockets* High-power rocketry, a hobby similar to model rocketry...
. Fatally shot by Kazan, Mirov manages to stagger away and the alien transfers itself to the crazed monk.
The passengers flee into the trailing freight car while the monk murders Kazan and his men, and then the Count, draining all their minds. Rescuing the Countess, Saxton manages to hold the monk at gunpoint under a light – as he has realised that bright light in its host's eyes will prevent the entity from draining minds or transferring to another body. The creature/monk explains that it is in reality an energy being that had travelled from another galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
with others of its kind, but been marooned. It existed alone for millions of years in the bodies of protozoa
Protozoa
Protozoa are a diverse group of single-cells eukaryotic organisms, many of which are motile. Throughout history, protozoa have been defined as single-cell protists with animal-like behavior, e.g., movement...
, fish and other animals to survive, but cannot live outside a living being longer than a few moments. The creature/monk begs to be spared, tempting Saxton with its accumulated and advanced alien knowledge – but by this ruse manages to escape, by suddenly animating the dead body of the Count.
Saxton and the Countess flee the creature, but it now resurrects all of its victims as white-eyed zombie
Zombie
Zombie is a term used to denote an animated corpse brought back to life by mystical means such as witchcraft. The term is often figuratively applied to describe a hypnotized person bereft of consciousness and self-awareness, yet ambulant and able to respond to surrounding stimuli...
s. These undead chase Saxton and the Countess back to the rear car, where the survivors have taken refuge. They work desperately to uncouple the caboose from the rest of the train, as the Russian government sends a telegraph to a dispatch station ahead, instructing them to destroy the train by sending it down a dead-end spur. The switchhouse follows this order in the belief the country is at war. The creature/monk assumes the train's engineer position to take over the train, which enters the spur leading to a deep ravine. Saxton and Wells manage separate the last car from the rest of the train, which goes over the cliff to a fiery wreck below, presumably killing the creature and its resurrected dead. The freight car rolls precariously to the end of the track, where the survivors witness the fire consuming the train and the unnatural inhabitants within.
Production
Horror Express was filmed in MadridMadrid
Madrid is the capital and largest city of Spain. The population of the city is roughly 3.3 million and the entire population of the Madrid metropolitan area is calculated to be 6.271 million. It is the third largest city in the European Union, after London and Berlin, and its metropolitan...
between 1971–1972, produced on a low budget of $300,000 with the luxury of having three familiar genre actors in the lead. The film was co-produced by American filmwriter/producer Bernard Gordon
Bernard Gordon
Bernard Gordon was an American writer and producer. For much of his 27-year career, he toiled in obscurity, prevented from taking screen credit by the Hollywood Blacklist. Among his best-known works are screenplays for Flesh and Fury, Earth vs...
, who had collaborated with Martin on the 1972 film Pancho Villa
Pancho Villa (film)
Pancho Villa is an American, British and Spanish spaghetti western film directed by Eugenio Martín. The film features Telly Savalas, Clint Walker, Chuck Connors and Anne Francis.-Plot:...
(which featured Savalas in the title role). Though it was believed that as Bernard Gordon had acquired the train model used in Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra
Nicholas and Alexandra is a 1971 biographical film which tells the story of the last Russian monarch, Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, and his wife, Tsarina Alexandra....
and he commissioned a script for its use, Gordon denied it, saying the model had been constructed for Pancho Villa. Filmmakers used the mock-up from Pancho Villa as the interior for all train cars during production since no further room was available on stage. All scenes within each train car were shot consecutively, the set then modified and shot for the next car.
The film had sequences shot at the 1892 Madrid Atocha railway station designed by Alberto de Palacio Elissagne
Alberto Palacio
Alberto de Palacio y Elissague was a Spanish engineer and architect born in Sare and grown up in Bilbao....
, who collaborated with Gustave Eiffel
Gustave Eiffel
Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was a French structural engineer from the École Centrale Paris, an architect, an entrepreneur and a specialist of metallic structures...
.
Securing Lee and Cushing was a coup for Gordon, since it lent a certain atmosphere reminiscent of Hammer Films
Hammer Film Productions
Hammer Film Productions is a film production company based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic "Hammer Horror" films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies and in later...
, many of which starred both of the actors. However, when Cushing arrived in Madrid to begin work on the picture, he was still distraught over the recent death of his wife, and announced to Gordon that he could not do the film. With Gordon desperate over the idea of losing one of his important stars, Lee stepped in and put Cushing at ease simply by talking to his great friend about some of their previous work together. Cushing changed his mind and stayed on.
Like all the Italian and Spanish films of the period, Horror Express was filmed mostly without sound, with effects and voices dubbed into the film later. Lee, Cushing and Savalas all provided their own voices for the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
market.
Themes
Horror Express features a number of familiar horrorHorror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
/science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
elements. The most obvious reference would be the short story "Who Goes There?
Who Goes There?
Who Goes There? is a science fiction novella by John W. Campbell, Jr. under the pen name Don A. Stuart, published August 1938 in Astounding Stories. In 1973, the story was voted by the Science Fiction Writers of America as one of the finest science fiction novellas ever written, and published with...
", which had previously been the inspiration for the 1951 film The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World
The Thing from Another World , is a 1951 science fiction film based on the 1938 novella "Who Goes There?" by John W. Campbell . It tells the story of an Air Force crew and scientists at a remote Arctic research outpost who fight a malevolent plant-based alien being...
. "Who Goes There?" also dealt with an alien who could assume the form of human beings, threatening an isolated group of people and interested in building a spacecraft so that it could escape the Earth.
Reception
According to director Eugenio Martin, his native country of SpainSpain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
was where the film fared worst, both critically and in terms of box office revenue. The film was received more positively in other markets where the audience was more familiar with low-budget horror films, such as the United Kingdom and Australia, and became a cult favorite when it ran quite extensively on television in the 1970s and 1980s.