Badmovies.org Forum

Movies => Bad Movies => Topic started by: wanderarbeiter on March 01, 2008, 05:20:01 PM



Title: Horror Express
Post by: wanderarbeiter on March 01, 2008, 05:20:01 PM
I was pleasantly surprised by this movie. This was part of one of those Mill Creek 50 pack deals, so my expectations were already pretty low. The movie turned out to be surprisingly entertaining and competent. An archaeologist (Christopher Lee!) unearths a frozen ape-man, the ape-man thaws and runs amok on the train it is being transported on, although there may be more to the ape-man than meets the eye (no spoilers, sorry). Now Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing (who plays a rival scientist) must unravel the mystery before the train reaches its destination.

Inspector Mirov: The two of you together. That's fine. But what if one of you is the monster?
Dr. Wells (Peter Cushing) : [aghast] Monster? We're British, you know. 

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0068713/


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Eyesore on March 01, 2008, 06:44:43 PM
I've loved this movie since I was a kid. Especially Telly Savalas' over the top Cossack.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: RCMerchant on March 01, 2008, 06:58:24 PM
A great little movie!!!!
I always think of that line too...
The visuals ar quite striking...and in case you always wanted to know what it would be like to see it in Germany-here's a cool German trailer!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztgcUksBqWA
 


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: peter johnson on March 01, 2008, 07:15:35 PM
Yeah, Savalas shows his star power in this one -- It really is his film, despite Lee & Cushing together again.
It's a great film to show if you're doing a Horror Night at your local club, pub or TV station, as it's always in Public Domain, re. No rights or royalties concerns.  We ran it as part of "Movie Maesoleum" once upon a time, on local Colorado PBS.
peter johnson/denny crane


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Doc Daneeka on March 01, 2008, 07:32:52 PM
Yeah, Savalas shows his star power in this one -- It really is his film, despite Lee & Cushing together again.
It's a great film to show if you're doing a Horror Night at your local club, pub or TV station, as it's always in Public Domain, re. No rights or royalties concerns.  We ran it as part of "Movie Maesoleum" once upon a time, on local Colorado PBS.
peter johnson/denny crane
How is it Savalas' film? He was in it for all of 15 minutes at most!

And yeah, PD films are nice :teddyr:, of course other than the fact that no one ever bothers to give them a decent SE DVD release! :hot:


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: akiratubo on March 02, 2008, 12:13:12 AM
This movie is ok.  I love how Lee's character tries to gloss over not knowing how the monk's chalk wouldn't write on the crate.

"Hypnosis.  Yoga.  A conjurer's trick."

When in doubt, toss out some buzz words and make a hasty exit.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: soylentgreen on March 02, 2008, 12:20:20 AM
It's a great film to show if you're doing a Horror Night at your local club, pub or TV station, as it's always in Public Domain, re. No rights or royalties concerns.  We ran it as part of "Movie Maesoleum" once upon a time, on local Colorado PBS.
peter johnson/denny crane

And yeah, PD films are nice :teddyr:, of course other than the fact that no one ever bothers to give them a decent SE DVD release! :hot:

Sadly, this is the exact reason why, no matter when I've seen this or in what format, it's always been rough and cruddy.  I wondered what the Mill Creek quality was like.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Jack on March 02, 2008, 08:24:42 AM
The film has everything - Lee, Cushing, cool monster, great location, varied characters.  So why do I always get really bored during it?  I don't know what it is, I should be mesmerized by this, but I just never seem to get into it.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Neville on March 02, 2008, 05:54:02 PM
This one is classic. Not exactly great, despite the cast and the visuals, but lots of fun nevertheless. I had the greatest laughs with Telly Savalas OTT performance, and when the monk tempts the creature to posses him, to what he (it?) answers that he's got nothing in his head he could posibly use.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Eyesore on March 02, 2008, 06:37:28 PM
 I think that right from Capt. Kazan's (Savalas) entrance at the train station, you have the feeling that he is in charge in a maniacally confident sort of way. He is brash, charming with the ladies, and fearless.
Plus, he is believable when saying normally corny lines like;

"Little Papa, do you believe in the Devil?"
"Yes."
"Good, then tell him; 'I know that a horse has 4 legs, a murderer has 2 arms, and the Devil is afraid of one...honest...Cossack'.".

 My second favorite performance is Miss Jones' (Alice Reinheart). Businesslike, yet tongue in cheek.

 I've got the Geneon copy, and aside from a few lines in the early part of the movie, it is a great copy with Hammer-like vivid colors.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Allhallowsday on March 02, 2008, 09:35:15 PM
HORROR EXPRESS was a late night staple of CBS (channel 2) out of New York in the 70s.  I can relate to Jack with regards to having been bored by it in the past, as Neville put it, it's not exactly great but a lot of fun.  Plus, for me, I have a lot of nostalgia for this flick... and I think I should dig out my own DVD copy, which I have on some huge cheapo collection (that with just a few films watched already was worth the purchase price...)   
BELA, thanks for the trailer... I feel like I watched the whole damned movie, including the finale!!!  :twirl:


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: peter johnson on March 03, 2008, 03:12:41 PM
Someone can own a film & only be on for a few minutes -- As others here note, it depends upon the strength of the performance.  I think Lee and Cushing play very subdued characters in this, not that they're bad or anything -- they never are -- , just that when Savalas comes on full of testosterone & rising from the furs wherein he has his latest nekkid gal, chomping the wooden scenery to bits, well . . . like I say, his star-power/his film.
Re. Picture quality -- Try getting a VHS copy from some video store trying to dump their VHS tapes.  I find that most VHS versions are cleaner than whatever they're using to strike the DVD-pack versions.  The one we used to use on "Movie Maesoleum" was clear as a bell, with only a few "moth-marks" -- and it was from a VHS copy.
Those red, red eyes simply cannot be bright enough!!
peter johnson/denny crane


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: BoyScoutKevin on March 04, 2008, 08:23:16 PM
The nearest thing to a Hammer horror never made by Hammer. Thus, if you like the Hammer horrors, you have to see this one.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: trekgeezer on March 05, 2008, 08:28:48 AM
I had the greatest laughs with Telly Savalas OTT performance,

Telly's great in everything he's in. I think he was just an over the top kinda guy.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: soylentgreen on March 05, 2008, 01:15:54 PM
Telly's great in everything he's in. I think he was just an over the top kinda guy.



Everyone snarks on it, but man, do I LOVE this movie...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8jJxKTFXPc

Pervert!  :wink:


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Torgo on March 05, 2008, 10:59:12 PM
I had Horror Express on VHS at one point.  It's actually a very enjoyable and well made little B movie. I've seen it on DVD here and there and need to pick it up.


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: Trevor on March 06, 2008, 05:35:24 AM
The first really creepy movie that I saw as a child, next to Phillip Leacock's Baffled: I saw it on TV in black and white (no colour TV back then in Rhodesia) and it both scared and entertained me.

I wrote an appreciation of it for a school essay and was called up by our school teacher to explain why I had watched this at my age. I told him to call my folks, which he did. My parents had watched it with me and my father's reaction to the teacher cannot be printed here: it was something like "&^%$#@ @#$% ^&*( &^%$. Thank you, have a nice day."  :buggedout:


Title: Re: Horror Express
Post by: WingedSerpent on March 07, 2008, 10:09:25 PM
This is one of the many movies in which I didn't want the monster to be killed in the end
S

P

O

I

L

E

R

S

This alien creature has been living with life on our planet since it was single celled organizms.  Think of the knowledge that could have been gotten from it if the people weren't trying to kill it.  It was just trying to get home.  There was a reason they were tryng to kill it before it could accomplish this-I don't remember most of the specifics Its been a while since I've seen the unaltered movie.  Last time was under a hooror show host that peppers the movies with different sound spfx