Sir Christopher Lee has passed at the age of 93. Less than a week later, the world is still learning so much about the incredible life this man led. Every day this week I've learned something else about Christopher Lee than I wasn't aware of. Did you know he was once an aspiring opera singer? To those of us have a deep love of classic horror movies, Mr. Lee will always be known as a Horror Icon. But let's not forgot this man was a War Hero first, with a pretty remarkable service record. Christopher Lee put in time as a spy and Nazi hunter long before he donned the crest of Dracula. He was also known to be a great example of an English Gentleman, and I have no doubt that reputation was well deserved. I don't have a bucket list, but if I did, meeting Christopher Lee, perhaps over a cup of tea would have most likely been on it.
Now, in honor of Mr. Lee, I chose to watch Horror Express tonight. It's an obscure movie that is said to be influenced by the short story "Who Goes There?". That story also inspired The Thing From Another World, which of course led us to John Carpenter's The Thing and so forth. At a glance, Horror Express has nothing to do with those other movies. The bulk of those movies take place in Antarctica, involve American and Norwegian base camps that deal with a lot of bad weather and alien life forms. Horror Express takes place on a train, involves a lot of English and Russian characters that deal with people with scary eyes and smooth brains that may or may not be alien life forms. Still with me? But, when you watch Horror Express, I promise you that you'll draw those comparisons to The Thing on your own without even knowing that they were both influenced by the same novella. I know I did. Horror Express tends to delve into the subject of religion versus evolution as well in an attempt to give the movie more substance and for the most part, it works.
It's a bit of a treat here to enjoy Christopher Lee in a lead role that isn't villainous. He plays an archeological professor of sorts. He's no Indiana Jones, but he does have his heroic moments towards the end of this movie. We're also treated to Peter Cushing, who plays a doctor on board the same train. And then, as if the movie was lacking in crazy, Telly Savalas shows up to shake things up. That's right, two Bond Villains and Grand Moff Tarkin are all here to save the day. Or is that Dracula, Kojak and Dr. Frankenstein? I better move on before I start some sort of ultimate movie character time paradox here.
I like this movie. It's obscure, it's underrated, and it almost feels like another great Hammer Films movie, though it isn't. The musical score is said to have been by John Cacavas. This appears to be his first movie score credit and when hearing pieces of it, I thought it sounded a lot like something that would be composed by John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame. That's not necessarily a bad thing here.
If you have a chance, give this movie a go some time. The picture quality of the various DVD copies are not exactly top notch but they aren't so bad that you can't enjoy the movie. You may have a copy that skips a little bit the first 15 mins or so, or messed up for a few seconds towards the last third of the movie. It's ok. Just push on through. When I found a copy of Horror Express at the local Goodwill store for 2 bucks I wasn't expecting much in terms of production, but after watching it, this cheap DVD copy faired much better than when I watched Horror Express on Turner Classic Movies a couple years ago on Halloween. There is also a 2011 Blu Ray release of Horror Express but I haven't had a chance to view that one as of yet.
GRADE: B
