HORROR EXPRESS
All aboard for cheese!
Man, who knew Telly Savalas looked so much like Clancy Brown?
A paleontologist, played by Christopher Lee, finds an ancient fossilized skeleton (as opposed to the other kinds of fossilized skeletons) of what he believes is "the missing link" - so, he does what any good paleontologist would do: gets a bunch of sherpas to pack it up in a crate and march it on over to Shanghai where it's loaded onto the Trans-Siberian Express. On the train, he meets a microbiologist (Peter Cushing), and people die.
Yes, unluckily for the passengers, that skeleton grows flesh, takes on a remarkable resemblance to the beast on the box cover (I hate it when box covers give away the monster like that), and... you're not going to believe this...steals people's memories. And you know how our intrepid scientists find this out? They hack open the victims' skulls and notice that their brains are round, like beachballs. The wrinkles have been removed - thus, the memories have been sucked out.
The beast is killed, but that's just the beginning of their problems, and all of the plot I'm going to reveal (except for hinting at an outrageous moment where some ocular fluid is extracted and looked at under a microscope. I mean, my god, this has to be the most absurd bit of pseudoscience I've ever seen in film) (rent it, rent it right now to see what I mean. You'll be holding your sides from laughing so hard).
Lee's great at usual, and Cushing's quite good too, in one of his "intrepid investigator" roles instead of his tiresome "cowering ninny" role. Savalas steals the show, but comes in FAR too late in the proceedings. Features Rasputin - well, not really him, but he looks a damn lot like him.
The R rating is inexplicable. And what kind of a silly bastard builds train tracks that run right to the edge of a cliff? Ah, those crazy Russians.
Goofy as hell, and not always aware of that, Horror Express nevertheless almost always entertains. Check it out.