Horror Express

I wanted to like Horror Express. I mean it stars two icons of some of my all-time favorite movies: Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings (respectively) fame. Here they are together facing off against a mind-stealing monster! I do enjoy both of them in this movie, and add to that a great appearance by Telly Savalas.

Unfortunately, the movie as a whole just fails to deliver.

The story revolves mostly around an archaeologist (Lee) and a doctor (Cushing). Lee has found what he thinks is the missing evolutionary link between humans and primates. As he's transporting it on a train, this fossil comes to life and starts killing people. Some think it's the devil, others think there's something more natural going on here. The two professionals join forces with an investigator and other train passengers to try to figure out what's going on and stop the killing. This entails figuring out what the creature wants as well as why the victims' eyes are turning white.

A lot of the performances are good, the atmosphere is often pleasantly creepy, and the mystery of the creature is somewhat well done. The problems come in many forms. For starters, the pacing is far too slow. While the actors may be good the writers are not so much. The story fails to be engaging, the explanations get rather convoluted without enough believable science to back them up, and most of the monster murder scenes are more corny than scary. That last one is too bad because there are actually a few times that the director gets it right.

The edits are done in such a way that the impact of a couple of the attack scenes come across nicely, but most of the time the crappy effects and jarring edits kill the momentum of the scares.

Some of the other editing is poor as well. One scene in particular reveals something to one of the characters. We get music and reactions as if the revelation has been made to us, the viewers, as well, yet we don't find out the secret until much later. Making the revelation earlier would have worked just fine, but acting like it is revealed when it isn't hurts the flow of the story.

MORALITY:

This one has a little bit of violence and some monster attacks that younger audiences might find scary.

It has some mild strong language.

There's nothing particularly sexual and no nudity.

SPIRITUALITY:

I take issue with the monk character, a semi-important side character, on a couple of levels. At first he is interesting and seems to have some arcane wisdom, an old wizard type. I thought he might turn out to be an interesting fellow. **SMALL SPOILER** Instead, as soon as he sees a little bit of the monster's power, he is ready to give up a life-long service to God in order to join ranks with Satan. As a monk he would believe in the existence of Satan but would also believe that God the Father is more powerful. It's characteristically unbelievable for him to switch sides so easily and quickly without at least setting up that he is serving God not because of religious beliefs but for some other self-serving reasons. It comes across less as a gripping plot element and more as a jab against religion. **END SPOILERS**

I suppose there is a warning of sorts to take away from this. The Bible tells us that people will be lead astray by evil men with ability to perform signs and wonders. Don't be so easily pulled from your service to God!

Ultimately the explanation for the monster has more to do with sci-fi than anything supernatural. It is not the devil even though it is treated like it is.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

I just couldn't get into this story enough, and had trouble with the quality of my copy which made it that much harder to enjoy. The actors are the only thing that will save this from the lowest of the low ratings.

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