Horror Express, 1973.
Directed by Eugenio Martin.
Starring Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing and Telly Savalas.
Horror Express is a low budget Spanish production that reunited the celebrated 'Hammer Horror' duo of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, while director Eugenio Martin reused the sets from his previous effort Pancho Villa (1972) along with star Telly Savalas, whose appearance in this picture comes hot on the heels of his debut as Kojak in the American television series.
Anthropologist Professor Saxton (Lee) has discovered what he believes to be the 'Missing Link' frozen in Manchuria, and he and associate Dr. Wells (Cushing) board a train bound for Europe with the fossilised creature stored in a crate. A number of brutal murders soon occur and when the creature is found to be responsible it is destroyed. However they soon discover that the fossil was inhabited by an alien entity that possesses the ability to shift between bodies, and the two set about to rescue the remaining passengers with the aid of Captain Kazan (Savalas) and his small band of Cossacks.
Like many European productions of the time, Horror Express was mostly shot without sound and dialogue recorded for the various different markets in post-production (with Lee, Cushing and Savalas all providing their own voices for this English version). While the film failed disappointed at the Spanish box office it did prove successful in the U.K., and has since achieved a cult following due to repeated television broadcasts throughout the 1970s and 80s.
Embeds courtesy of Internet Archive.
Related:
The City of the Dead a.k.a Horror Hotel (1960)
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