FRANKENSTEIN'S BLOODY TERROR (1968), aka THE MARK OF THE WOLFMAN

Director: Enrique L. Eguiluz

Writer: Paul Naschy (as Jacinto Molina)

Producers: Maximiliano Pérez-Flores, Enrique Molina (uncredited)

Cast: Paul Naschy, Dyanik Zurakowska (as Dianik Zurakowska), Manuel Manzaneque, Julián Ugarte, Aurora de Alba, José Nieto, Carlos Casaravilla, Rosanna Yanni, Gualberto Galban, Antonio Jimenéz Escribano (as Antonio G. Escribano), Juan Medina, Rafael Alcantara, Antonio Orengo, Angela Rhu, Pilar Vela, Milagros Ceballos, Angel Menendez, Beatriz Savon, Maria Teresa Torralba, Victoriano Lopez 

During a wolf hunt, Waldemar Daninsky (Paul Naschy) comes to the aide of his romantic rival Rudolph Weissmann (Manuel Manzaneque) who is being attacked by the werewolf Imre Wolfstein. Daninsky saves Rudolph’s life by stabbing the werewolf with a silver bladed cross, but not before being badly bitten. Daninsky inherits the werewolf curse and must hide himself away in the Wolfstein castle as he and Rudolph look for a cure to his condition. 

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Jacinto Molina had been a lifelong movie fan and horror film enthusiast. Molina first made his name as a Spanish weightlifting champion. He had also studied architecture and art and aspired to be an art director in Spanish films. He wound up being cast in a few movie roles and learned as much as he could about film production.

When Molina got the “crazy” idea to make a horror film inspired by his early influences of such films as Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), no one took him very seriously. In '60s Spain there had been no horror film tradition. Despite the prolific Spanish director Jesús Franco’s works, it was still assumed that only the United States and England should produce horror movies. Molina still pressed on writing a complete script called La marca del hombre lobo (The Mark of the Wolfman). Eventually, a German production company that wanted to shoot a film in their full color 70mm 3-D process took an interest in the script and helped finance the movie. 

When plans to star the famous '40s Wolf Man Lon Chaney, Jr., fell through due to the actor’s failing health, one of the German producers suggested Molina play the part of his lycanthropic hero Waldemar Daninsky. Satisfied with Molina’s screen tests as man and monster, the producers green-lit the production. It was Molina’s first starring role and, initially, was a part he never envisioned himself playing. Once the filming and post-production was completed, Molina received a phone call from the producers. They were about to start the marketing of the film, but they insisted Molina be billed with a non-Spanish sounding name that would be better received internationally. They gave Molina half an hour to provide his own stage name or one would be chosen for him. From the names of the current Pope of the time (Paul VI) and a fellow weightlifting athlete from Hungary (Imre Nagy), Molina conceived the alias of Paul Naschy and the champion of Spanish horror was born. 

Written and produced as The Mark of the Wolfman, this film is Naschy’s re-working of the Larry Talbot character and situations from The Wolf Man (1941). Again, we have a man of means who doesn’t quite fit in with the locals. Before long, he is wounded by a werewolf and afflicted with the curse of bestial transformations that compel him to murder. His plight is also made more tragic by the complications it creates for a new relationship he has begun with a beautiful local girl (Dyanik Zurakowska). That girl also has an earlier relationship that the hero is disrupting. There are even gypsies involved in the introduction of the werewolf menace who infects the hero. 

 

Naschy’s main alteration to the template of The Wolf Man is more monsters. This probably also can be attributed to the influence of his beloved Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man and the other Universal Pictures sequels that had multiple monsters in their plots. Naschy gives us two werewolves and two vampires. As if this horror reactor was reaching some sort of critical mass for a creepy creature chain reaction, it generates a Frankenstein connection due to the American distributor’s prior commitment to deliver a Frankenstein movie to the theaters. Sam Sherman, head of distributor Independent-International, concocted a narrated prologue that attached the Wolfstein family of the werewolf Imre Wolfstein to the Frankenstein family of monster-makers. That is the reason this movie was re-titled Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, and why there is absolutely no Frankenstein stuff anywhere to be found in the actual film story. Considering that Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man made such a profound impression on Naschy at an early age and was a major influence in his choice of material for his first script, it seems almost fitting that Frankenstein somehow worms its way into this flick. 

This film is a great jumping off point for the man who would become an international horror icon. Although derivative, Naschy’s story delivers the goods to the drive-in crowd looking for some supernatural thrills and chills. The Wolfstein castle, crypt, and dungeon are great locations reeking with atmosphere. The characters of Dr. Janos Mikhelov (Julián Ugarte) and his wife Wandessa (Aurora de Alba) make a great, eerie first appearance at a fog-shrouded train station. The scenes of Waldemar Daninsky caged or chained in the dungeon while undergoing his transformations are the most memorable scenes for me. The lighting, shadows, music, groans, and Naschy’s performance all come together to make us realize the horror and torment of the werewolf. 

Despite Sam Sherman’s meddling with the film title and prologue, I think the English version probably benefitted from an improved soundtrack. Some of the original Spanish language version clips I have seen have a different score from what is heard in Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror. If Sherman was involved with creating a different film score, I commend him for his choices. The music throughout this version is very good, and later filmmakers have re-used at least a couple of these tracks. These were probably library tracks that were found and substituted for the original Spanish score. If this was the case, I think this was an improvement, though I usually resent tampering by others unattached to a film’s production. I also have to say that it seems the werewolf growls of Daninsky are much better in the English version than what seems to be provided in the Spanish clips. I am still on the fence as to whether Sherman deciding to omit the opening ten and a half minutes from the film is an improvement. He is right in stating that the cut scenes were not essential to the story and that the edit gets the audience into the thick of things more quickly. As a result, however, we are immediately faced with characters we are trying to catch up with. 

This film has a cast that should be of interest to any Euro-horror film fan. Paul Naschy begins his long horror film career playing his werewolf as a savage whirlwind. Dyanik Zurakowska is the angelic, blonde beauty Janice who provides the love interest for our tragic hero. She was a welcome attraction in other Spanish horrors such as Cauldron of Blood (1967) and The Vampires Night Orgy (1972). That other blonde beauty Rosanna Yanni (the gypsy Nascha) would be featured in more films with Paul Naschy. She also appeared in Amando de Ossorio’s first horror film Fangs of the Living Dead (1973) along with this film’s Julián Ugarte. The sinfully sexy Aurora de Alba also makes a more revealing appearance in the later Naschy film Vengeance of the Zombies (1973). 

Frankenstein’s Bloody Terror, aka The Mark of the Wolfman, certainly made its mark on the world of horror. It established the character of werewolf Waldemar Daninsky who would return in eleven more films. More importantly, it established the trajectory of Paul Naschy’s film career as a writer, actor, and eventual director. He would usually star in and sometimes direct his own screenplays. He made films in many genres, yet he would always return to horror. This horror hound admires and appreciates El Hombre Lobo’s versatility, enthusiasm, and prolific output. I still have many more Paul Naschy films to discover and look forward to each one. 

THE DIABOLICAL DR. Z (1966), aka MISS MUERTE

Director: Jesús Franco

Writers: Jesús Franco (as David Kuhne), Jean-Claude Carrièrre

Producers: Michel Safra, Serge Siberman

Cast: Mabel Karr, Estella Blain, Fernando Montes, Howard Vernon, Guy Mairesse, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Cris Huerta, Alberto Bourbón, (and remaining uncredited cast members follow) Ana Castor, Mer Casas, Antonio Jiménez Escribano, Lucía Prado, Jesús Franco, Daniel White, Francisco Camoiras, Rafael Hernández, José María Prada, Javier de Rivera, Vicente Roca, Ángela Tamayo 

When elderly Dr. Zimmer (Antonio Jiménez Escribano) and his daughter Irma (Mabel Karr) attend a neurological science convention, he announces his desire to experiment on convicted criminals using surgical techniques to reform them. This provokes outrage and ridicule from other doctors at the assembly. Dr. Zimmer is so upset by their reaction that he has a fatal stroke. Irma plans to avenge her father’s death by killing his three most severe critics. Using her father’s techniques, she turns the beautiful dancer Nadia (Estella Blain), whose stage name is Miss Death, into her slave. Then Irma sends Nadia out to lure each of her father’s enemies to their doom. 

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In yet another offshoot of his The Awful Dr. Orlof (1962), Jesús Franco presents another tale of mad medical science and uneasy sexuality. The Diabolical Dr. Z is another return to the tropes and obsessions that recur in many of Franco’s films: the elder Dr. Zimmer references theories of Dr. Orlof inspiring his own experiments; the experiments of Dr. Zimmer and his daughter Irma create not only a brutal and obedient henchman, but two beautiful and obedient henchwomen; a cabaret scene features the erotic and macabre Miss Death dance routine; and the police inspector played by director Franco is also named Tanner like the inspector in The Awful Dr. Orlof.

Mabel Karr, as Irma Zimmer, provides the impetus for the entire film. Her character is even more diabolical than her father. Karr’s performance is always controlled, yet seething with an obsessive intensity. She was not Franco’s first choice to play the role, but she is just right for it. In a rather strange detour in the plotline, Irma’s face gets severely burned. This seems of almost no consequence, as she has already set her plans of vengeance into motion and her disfigurement does not alter her character or MO one iota. In fact, she conducts facial surgery on herself immediately after the injury that almost completely removes the damage from her face. I have always puzzled over why this was included in the story. 

Fernando Montes is the handsome hero Philippe who has his way with the bereaved Irma Zimmer just before she begins her series of murders. Soon after, he becomes the live-in boyfriend of Nadia, aka Miss Death. His character has one of those incredible movie intuitions about the missing Nadia and how she might be involved in the murders of his fellow doctors. I guess Philippe’s ego just couldn’t handle the idea of the lady ditching him for a couple months to pursue a career opportunity. In another Orlof connection, Montes played the inspector’s right hand man in The Awful Dr. Orlof. 

The awful Dr. Orlof himself, Howard Vernon, is featured here as Dr. Vicas, one of the targets of Irma Zimmer’s revenge. 

Estella Blain is almost otherworldly as Miss Death/Nadia. Her supple and curvaceous body is always shown to great and often nearly nude advantage. She has eyes that are almost luminous and is equipped with a set of outrageously long fingernails that are used as weapons. This is probably Blain’s most famous role. She had a very troubled life that ended much too soon with suicide in 1982, just as Franco was considering casting her in another film. 

The black-and-white cinematography makes this the finest looking Franco film I have ever seen. The lighting and framing of shots make almost every frame demand attention. For those who gripe about Franco’s later haphazard use of the zoom, they will note here that the zooms are always used to great effect. Much of the visual credit must go to the cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa. Unfortunately, this was the only time he worked on a Franco film. Ulloa was the cinematographer on another of my all-time favorite Spanish fright flicks Horror Express (1972). 

The Diabolical Dr. Z concludes Jesús Franco’s early black-and-white period of horror films in fine fashion. It has Franco’s recurring fixations, another avant-garde music score, and an ending that leaves the viewer a bit uncertain about the fates of its surviving leads. These offbeat elements contrast with the bizarre but coherent plot to make perhaps the finest film in Franco’s vast, increasingly weird, and often frustrating filmography.

THE EMBALMER (1965), aka THE MONSTER OF VENICE

Director: Dino Tavella

Writers: Antonio Walter, Dino Tavella, Paolo Lombardo, Gian Battista Mussetto

Producers: Guido Nart (Christian Marvel), Walter Manley (uncredited)

Cast: Luigi Martocci (as Gin Mart), Maureen Ligard Brown, Luciano Gasper, Anita Todesco, Francesco Bagarin, Maria Rosa Vizzina, Paola Vaccari, Alcide Gazzotto, Alba Brotto, Pietro Walter, Vicky Del Castillo, Elmo Caruso, Jti Janne 

In Venice, Italy, beautiful women are being abducted by a madman who embalms them in his underground lair to preserve their beauty in his private collection of corpses. Newspaper reporter Andrea (Gin Mart) is investigating the case. He is trying to convince the authorities that the missing girls last seen along the Venetian canals are not just undiscovered drowning victims. 

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The Embalmer should have been a helluva lot better. The villain is a morbid nut with a creepy costume, a great hideout, and a bizarre MO. He scuba dives through an underwater tunnel from his catacomb beneath Venice to abduct the women he targets along the canals.

Despite those intriguing bits of business, the film remains a mostly dull affair. The characters are without any interest, the villain has no background and no reason given for his obsession, we are given almost no way to even guess the killer‘s identity, and it is impossible that the fiend would know just when the beauties he targets will happen to be available to snatch from along the Venetian canals to drag them underwater to his hideout. The events are all staged and presented with the disjointed and unimaginative finesse of a tourist’s sightseeing home movies. This may seem appropriate as the newspaper reporter hero spends plenty of time showing a group of young college girls the sights of Venice. That is only a bit less thrilling than the rest of this flick.

Many bad genre films still have many exploitation gimmicks, eccentricities, and absurdities to ponder and enjoy. The Embalmer lacks even those dubious merits. It is barely competent without any tension or complexity. Its English dubbing does not do it any favors, either. 

I keep thinking about what could have been done to fix this movie. It is missed-opportunity flicks like this one that make you appreciate what makes a genre film satisfying. If there were characters that had any interesting interactions and quirks, if the villain was anyone we even had a chance to know, if there was any attempt to explain the motivations of the killer, and if there were actually motivations for any other characters in this story, then even the most routine presentation of the events and action might seem like it mattered. 

Once the hero and heroine locate the embalmer’s hideout, things become a bit more energetic. The only surprise is a rather downbeat conclusion. 

The Embalmer is so simplistic and stilted that it barely qualifies as an early example of the giallo film genre. With its Venice setting, bizarre murderer, and a creepy underground location for a madman’s corpse collection, this flick should have been an inspiration for the many Italian horrors to follow. As it is, The Embalmer is a real stiff.

BLOOD THIRST (1965/released 1971)

Director: Newt Arnold

Writer: N.I.P. Dennis 

Producer: Newt Arnold

Cast: Robert Winston, Vic Diaz, Katherine Henryk, Yvonne Nielson, Vic Silayan, Eddie Infante, Judy Dennis, Bruno Punzalan, Max Rojo, Minda Morena, Ching Tello, Isidro Francisco, Felix Marfil 

One night in Manila, a dark figure with a monstrously malformed head pounces on a victim. This is just the latest in a series of homicides of young women found drained of blood from deep slashes on their arms. Police Inspector Miguel Ramos (Vic Diaz) invites his American friend Adam Rourke (Robert Winston), a former police lieutenant, author, and sex crimes expert, to assist him in solving the murders. 

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Blood Thirst is composed of a strange mix of early '60s influences. This film is interesting because it does not seem to care which genre it is supposed to belong to. Its title is obviously being pitched at the horror crowd, yet it plays out like a bizarre episode of the Peter Gunn television series set in the Philippines. Jet-setting and the globe-hopping James Bond were all the rage in the '60s. Therefore, our pistol-packin’ hero Adam Rourke travels to the exotic location of Manila, spends plenty of time in a swanky nightclub smoking, drinking, and watching a sexy belly dancer (Yvonne Nielson) between his fistfights, and he somehow muddles his way to the solution of the weird murder mystery.

This all sounds pretty exciting and atypical for a horror movie, but the horror junkie will probably be a bit puzzled or frustrated. In fact, the horror almost seems to be an afterthought. Horror is established during the opening sequence of the film, and then only sporadically onward until the finish. In the meantime, we have the hero doing his Peter Gunn/James Bond inspired best to kill time with smokes, drinks, and polite banter with everyone. He also indulges in brash machismo that borders on rape with Sylvia (Katherine Henryk), his love interest in the movie. Since she resents him almost immediately, it stands to reason that she will fall in love with him, right? After all, he is handsome, well dressed, and summoned from halfway around the world to solve the case so he must be irresistible, no matter how smugly he behaves.

Robert Winston is pretty smooth as Adam Rourke. Some of his lines aren’t quite as clever as he thinks they are, but he makes for a suitable hero. He certainly does have his quirks, though. He travels around with a life-sized dummy he names Harvey. It makes one wonder just how often our cop-turned-writer hero Rourke ever expects this bulky accessory to actually be of any use, but it sure comes in handy in this flick. This turns out to be an elaboration on a stratagem used for a scene in the first James Bond film Dr. No (1962). Just why Rourke is expecting such imminent danger is never explained. Winston also flaunts his manly, hairy-chested physique, ala Sean Connery in Dr. No, by sleeping in only pajama pants. 

Rourke’s deviation from the Peter Gunn/James Bond influence is his having to suffer occasional indignities; once by the aforementioned love interest Sylvia leaving Rourke abandoned for a long walk back into town, and twice by a one-legged man that flips him flat on his back. Rourke is even coincidentally on hand to assist a drunken acquaintance to her door, yet decides against it, which allows another murder. There are other defeats dealt to him by his foes, but they fall squarely into the typical hero-takes-punishment mode. 

Ultimately, hero Adam Rourke’s snooping around does not solve much of anything. It is only when he is at the mercy of his unsuspected adversary that he learns what is going on. His adversary even mocks him by saying the police are even more stupid than Rourke. Then it is up to good luck and someone else to save his bacon. 

Once the menace is fully dealt with, there are still some unanswered questions regarding the phenomena involved in this story. It is not always necessary for a horror film to explain every little bit of weirdness, but the monster is never given any reason for its existence. If the occult is involved anything goes, I guess. 

Busy Filipino character actor Vic Diaz is on hand as Inspector Ramos. He would become a familiar face in Filipino exploitation films of the '60s and '70s. Unlike this film’s character, Diaz usually played villains. 

Aside from the quirky mix of '60s influences in this oddball of a film, Blood Thirst’s most distinctive feature is the black-and-white cinematography. The shots are full of nice compositions and sharp lighting that creates interesting images in a pretty talky and leisurely paced movie. 

Contributing to the film’s refusal to ever conform to expectations, this 1965 production was not released in the US until 1971 as a co-feature to another odd, blood-themed horror film from Britain called Bloodsuckers (aka Incense for the Damned). The '70s drive-in crowd must have been scratching their heads wondering just what the hell to make of this almost schizoid, black-and-white, throwback-to-the-mid-'60s flick called Blood Thirst.

THE CRAWLING EYE (1958), aka THE TROLLENBERG TERROR

Director: Quentin Lawrence

Writers: Jimmy Sangster adapting the original teleplay by “Peter Key” (pseudonym for George F. Kerr, Jack Cross, and Giles Cooper)

Producers: Robert S. Baker, Monty Berman

Cast: Forrest Tucker, Janet Munro, Jennifer Jayne, Laurence Payne, Walter Mitchell, Andrew Faulds, Frederick Schiller, Stuart Saunders, Colin Douglas, Derek Sydney, Jeremy Longhurst, Anthony Parker, Richard Golding, George Herbert, Leslie Heritage, Anne Sharp, Theodore Wilhelm, Caroline Claser, Garard Green 

UN investigator Alan Brooks (Forrest Tucker) visits the Swiss mountain village of Trollenberg. Although he is supposed to be on holiday, he is arriving at the invitation of his friend Professor Crevett (Warren Mitchell). The scientist has asked Brooks to come to Trollenberg due to a phenomenon similar to one Brooks tried to investigate in the Andes Mountains. There is a stationary, radioactive cloud high up on the Trollenberg Mountain, and climbers that enter that cloud disappear or are found decapitated. 

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The Crawling Eye followed in the footsteps of Hammer Films that had recently made hit sci-fi horror films adapted from British television serials. This independent British production tried to repeat that success by adapting the serial The Trollenberg Terror. They also had Hammer Films’ scripter Jimmy Sangster write the screenplay. The movie retained the TV serial’s director Quentin Lawrence and star Laurence Payne.

This film’s weird menace and especially its US title The Crawling Eye are remembered by many sci-fi and horror buffs. The film also draws more than its fair share of special effects nitpickers. To be sure, the effects range from effective to some obvious and too small miniatures. I find the creatures to be wonderfully disgusting and the strange sounds they make are just as disturbing. 

Others will quibble that the science fiction aspect is not fully realized in favor of the gruesome bits. To that I say, “So what?” Ripping off human heads is truly nasty monster behavior. The monsters here are so inhuman that to believe they will behave in a manner that is rational in our terms is ridiculous. Just because they can travel from outer space to Earth does not mean that they will be above performing acts that we think are barbaric. Humans are capable of landing on the Moon and sending robot probes to Mars, yet we still boil screaming lobsters alive just before dining on them in fancy restaurants. Lobsters are so different from our species that many of us are indifferent to this cruelty. These invaders from space have no more sense of kinship to us than we do with that poor lobster in the pot. For movie purposes, the aliens are first and foremost monsters. Even if we did understand their space travel ability or their penchant for tearing off human heads, they would still be extraterrestrial badasses that need to be destroyed before they overwhelm us. 

Leaving a lot of questions about these "crawling eyes” unanswered also probably irritates those who think that a sci-fi menace about to overwhelm the heroes should be thoroughly explained. To that I scream, “Who the hell has that kind of time?!” The characters in this story are about to be killed! Killed by things never seen by any still living human on this planet! The aliens in this story do not have all of their mysteries explained by the heroes. However, the main characters in this film do hypothesize about the motives, behavior, and possible vulnerability of these creatures, and that should be sufficient. Our heroes being able to explain everything about them would be unrealistic. I agree that totally arbitrary fantasy is bad fantasy. But having pat answers and scientific gobbledygook that contrive to make a fantasy seem rational can often just tie itself up in fake logic that contradicts itself. This is a trap many more recent and supposedly sophisticated sci-fi flicks step into. 

Now let’s get down to business: This is one cool movie, dammit! 

The film has a unique setting in the small Swiss town at the base of the Trollenberg Mountain and on the mountain itself. After a gruesome opening scene, there is a slow build-up to the increasing danger the Trollenberg community faces, which could eventually threaten the rest of the world.

Forrest Tucker, as UN investigator Alan Brooks, makes an interesting and believable hero. He is mature and rugged enough to be intelligent, experienced, and pack a mean punch. This guy is resourceful and ready for anything. He travels with a loaded revolver and a hip flask to revive beautiful girls that faint and fall into his lap. He is a take-charge kind of guy, yet he is not some snarky know-it-all, and sometimes admits that he does not know what to do next. His character also has the unaffected humanity to react with shock when discovering grisly human remains. 

Janet Munro and Jennifer Jayne play Anne and Sarah Pilgrim, the sexy sisters that meet Alan Brooks on the train to Trollenberg. The Pilgrim sisters have a mind reading act that is not a trick but the real thing. Anne has true psychic ability and provides a lot of creepy anticipation for the audience when she tunes into the minds of the monsters. 

This is one of those movies that continued the under-siege brand of horror movie probably begun by The War of the Worlds (1953), and which continued through the '50s and '60 with films like Invisible Invaders (1959), The Birds (1963), and Night of the Living Dead (1968). In the aftermath of World War II and the ongoing Cold War fear of Russia overcoming the free world in one way or another, America and Britain were wary of being threatened not by lone monsters, but by an army of them. Movies like The Crawling Eye helped to vent such anxieties by confronting fictional stand-ins for our real world concerns. As the years passed, these films offered less solace by having fewer total and lasting victories as their conclusions.

HORROR EXPRESS (1972)

Director: Eugenio Martín

Writers: Arnaud d’Usseau, Julian Halevy

Producer: Bernard Gordon

Cast: Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Telly Savalas, Alberto de Mendoza, Sylvia Tortosa, Julio Peña, Helga Liné, Alice Reinheart, Ángel del Pozo, George Rigaud, Victor Israel, José Jaspe, Faith Clift, Juan Olaguibel, Barta Barri, Peter Beckman, Hiroshi Kitatawa, Vicente Roca, José Canalejas, Allen Russell, José Marco 

In 1906, British anthropologist Professor Sir Alexander Saxton (Christopher Lee) discovers the frozen remains of a prehistoric ancestor of man in China. He packs his find in a crate and hauls it back to Shanghai. There he loads it aboard the Trans-Siberian Express to return to Europe. However, Saxton’s “fossil” is alive, and its encounters with people leave them dead with blank, white eyes. 

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Horror Express is a quirky Spanish production that takes you on a strange ride. Just when you think you know where it is going, it veers off in another direction keeping it lively and unpredictable. Its mix of mystery, science fiction, and horror aboard a passenger train traversing the frozen expanse of Siberia provides a unique tale in an interesting and isolated setting.

This film’s story is supposed to be inspired by the classic John W. Campbell 1938 science fiction horror tale “Who Goes There?” That was the source for one of the greatest sci-fi fright flicks of all-time, The Thing from Another World (1951), and John Carpenter’s 1982 remake The Thing. There was even a 2011 prequel to the Carpenter film that was also called The Thing. Although Horror Express shares some basic ideas with the original novella, it also contributes plenty of other novel touches making it a very satisfying and offbeat film. 

The film boasts stars Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Telly Savalas. As Professor Saxton, Lee manages to do that British stiff upper lip, upper class arrogance better than anyone, yet somehow still manages to be heroic. Peter Cushing is Lee’s genial counterpoint as Dr. Wells. He also gets the funniest line of the film. As the ranting and brutal Cossack officer Captain Kazan, Savalas steals every scene he is in. 

Another standout in the cast is Alberto de Mendoza. He plays the monk Father Pujardov. His character demonstrates how easily the spiritually devout can lapse into evil fanaticism. 

There are two beauties in the cast that would both go on to co-star in another Spanish fright flick The Loreley’s Grasp (1973). Silvia Tortosa plays Irina Petrovski, the wife of an elderly Polish count. Apparently with her husband’s blessing, Irina seems to be openly enjoying the chance to flirt and flaunt herself before Professor Saxton, especially to rouse the ire of the Petrovskis’ spiritual advisor Father Pujardov. Frequent Euro-horror siren Helga Liné briefly appears as the stowaway Natasha. I first encountered Liné in this film, which plays no small part in it becoming a favorite Euro-horror of mine. With her graceful figure, auburn hair, and green eyes, her beauty is so striking and her demeanor so smoldering, that I have to believe that anything she appears in is worth watching. Before drool shorts out my keyboard, I had better move on… 

I want to refrain from discussing too many particulars about the menace in this movie and how it functions. The fun in this story is discovering those strange turns along with the characters. It could be argued that in a microscope examination by Professor Saxton and Dr. Wells that they all too quickly find exactly the needed images to tell them the origin of the threat they are dealing with. In the interests of keeping the story moving, it is excusable. We don’t want to watch hours of slide preparations before they arrive at the same conclusion, do we? Of course not, there would be less time for an already too limited amount of Helga Liné footage! Oops! Got to wipe off my keyboard again… 

John Cacavas provides a nice score that is melancholy and haunting, but can provide some horror stings when needed. An interesting idea is that the main theme of the movie is also a tune whistled by the baggage man (Victor Israel) that is learned and repeated by the movie’s menace. 

Director Eugenio Martín provides some eerie images throughout the film, and he makes fine use of the train car set and miniatures from his earlier film Pancho Villa (1972) that also starred Telly Savalas. I wish Martín had directed many more horror films. He did return to the genre the following year with A Candle for the Devil, aka It Happened at Nightmare Inn (1973). 

For the well-traveled horror buff, speeding through the frigid wastes of Siberia aboard Horror Express is a trip that can’t be missed. Horror heroes Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing sharing a compartment with Helga Liné in her slinky green dress is such fine company that being menaced by an unpredictable monster seems to be a perfectly reasonable risk. Need I say it again? Helga Liné! My keyboard can’t take much more…