Here’s some trivia for fans: There have been three movies and an X-Files episode based on a short story called “Who goes there?” This story is remarkable in that every single film adaptation is exceptional. Every single one. In fact all three motion-picture adaptations are three of the best horror/sci fi films ever made! They are: Horror Express, Howard Hawks’ production of The Thing and John Carpenter’s The Thing.

In Hawks’ version the “thing” is a large, man-like creature made of vegetable matter than must ingest blood to live. In Carpenter’s version it is a shape-shifting creature every single cell of which can live independently of every other cell. Thus, it can take on the appearance of animals it kills, including the members of the Artic research station in the movie. In the X-Files episode it is a parasite that can move from host to host. In Horror Express, the “thing” is a form of energy that can occupy the bodies of animals.

Christopher Lee’s Professor Saxon finds it frozen in the body of a distant ancestor, such as an Australopithecus. It can absorb the knowledge of the animals that it kills, and it goes around killing humans in attempt to accumulate enough scientific acumen to enable it to create a spacecraft that it can leave earth in. When it kills a thief it learns how to bend a nail and use it to escape from its cage. It gets loose on an Edwardian train and wanders the corridors whistling a song it learned when it absorbed the mind of a bagman. The movie is filled with brilliant touches, such as having the countess playing a song on a piano, the song she hears the monster whistling.

It is also quite a beautiful film to look at. It works as a horror film as well as a sumptuous period piece. This film is noteworthy in one very important way: it stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, both of Hammer Horror fame. The special thing here is that Peter Cushing isn’t fighting Christopher Lee. Rather, they are finally allowed to be allies. Yes, they were allies in Hound of the Baskervilles, but Lee was a minor character. They were also allies in Island of the Burning Doom but this film is not available anywhere. Christopher Lee is MUCH better as a hero than wasted in monster makeup.

Lee and Cushing’s repartee is sheer brilliance, capitalizing no doubt on their real-life friendship. The movie is chocked full of wonderful dialogue. Cushing: “It’s called `squeeze’ in China.” Lee: “In Britain we call it bribery and corruption!” After it is suggested that one of them might be the monster Cushing declares, offended, “Monsters? We’re British you know!” Lee also gets in some hilarious lines, as when he tells the Cossack to stop babbling nonsense, or when, after being asked why the chalk wouldn’t write on the crate he says it was due to yoga!

The film is really a masterpiece. It is commonly mistaken for a Hammer Horror film. If it were it would easily be the best Hammer Horror of all time. It is not actually a Hammer film though. In fact it’s not even English! Another trait worthy of mention is that the film really captures the Victorian and Edwardian idea that science would soon make religion obsolete. Telly Savalas (who is also excellent in it) declares “Even though I still believe in God I do not like to be made a fool of.” When the countess declares that the theory of “evolution is immoral” Christopher Lee roars, “Evolution is a fact. There is no morality in a fact!” When the priest, who thinks the alien is Satan, wants it to come into his body and asks it to do so the alien states that it does not want to absorb the priest’s mind, declaring that there is “nothing of any value in it.”

This is one of the best horror films ever made. It’s lots of fun, and is the downright best pairing of Lee and Cushing in any film. The funky seventies music works well, the film oozes atmosphere and the script is just great. It was an excellent idea to take this story and set it on a train in Siberia. When the Cossack soldiers are summoned by the alien Lee gets to step up and save the girl, playing the hero more than in any other film. Christopher Lee recently said that The Wickerman is still his greatest film. I think it’s Horror Express.

Rating: 5 / 5