HORROR EXPRESS: DOES ARROW HIT THE TARGET WITH REMASTERED BLU RAY

'HORROR EXPRESS' is not unlike a 57 variety soup all in one tin. Explain? Many moons ago when a full time student and living in an abode that could have easily have fallen off the cinema screen during a showing of 'Withnail', the day would eventually arrive when the cupboard was bare for all us seven 'vegetarian' students, bare of all atrractive and palatable nash nosh, and every bean, pluse, rice and dried vegtable would be boiled up in the contents of what we called, 'TSOATP' or 'THE SOUP OF A THOUSAND PLOTS' . .  most of us being media students, we compared each content to that of a movie plot line. 

THE POINT IS, where as most films have one, 'EXPRESS' has not only one plot, but several. Just as the film feels like it's following one direction, it throws in, another.. and another! There are lots of great ideas in this low budget Spanish horror, and each one has made it into the plot. It's not that it damages the film, far from it, it's these winds and bends that makes it very entertaining and never dull. If you are a Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee fan, you won't be a stranger to this film, if you have never seen the movie, I ain't going to add a damaging and de-railing SPOILER, that would no doubt ruin what is going to be for you, quite a unique 84 minute Cushing / Lee experience! But if you DO want more on the film, along with a gallery and plot, HERE IS THE PCAS FEATURE WITH ALL THAT AND MORE!

 

HERE IS THE NEWS: ARROW FILMS has a pulled off a very impressive transfer of 'Horror Express' and if you are a collector who has specific tastes to 'the lightness, the darkness, the contrast' of your purchases, I'll let you chew this one over, on your own. But for me personally, the picture quality looks very good indeed and WAY surpasses any other copy of the film I own from past purchases. This release has been restored to a very clear, clean and crisp 2K version from its original 35mm camera negative, and sits comfortably in its original 1.66:1 aspect ratio, plus the team at Arrow have carefully incorporated an additional 35mm interpositive element for the fifth reel, an appreciated and typical attention to detail that you would expect from Arrow!

IF YOU TOO own previous releases of 'EXPRESS' on dvd or blu ray, you'll notice, that the colours through out look natural, with no surprise out of step and colour continuity, of costumes and HAIR colours! As with many films of this era and budget, you would expect an element of grain, but this is pretty much levelled out and never looks really course, as it has on some version releases of the film. Shadows look very much like the quality of the Warner Brothers 'Dracula AD and Satanic Rites' remastered prints, it presents more refined detail than before, which is exactely what is needed for a film that gives us many scenes in the dark or shadows. Blacks are neither blotchy, have that annoying moving pixels element or are so dark you see nothing. Someone has taken great time and effort, to level out contrasts, to an even and impressive picture through out. 

HAVING WATCHED many releases of 'HORROR EXPRESS' over the years I am very very happy to tell you that, THIS remaster has nothing in the way of annoying drop outs and hisses. All of the my previous released versions, watched many times over the years, contained so many 'clicks, thuds and drops' that became almost like expected solo pieces of dialogue from unseen extra characters or old friends.... that even turned up like regular co stars in a tv soap, from one releaase to another! Thankfully, they are absent from Arrows remaster, which DOES come with optional subtitles in English SDH.  

ARROWS AUDIO is presented on an English mono LPCM track. There is one short piece of very minor distortion, see if you can spot it! This element I believe was damage caused during the dubbing of the film during production. For a mono soundtrack, from this age, the sound effects are good, dated but as good as Christopher Lee's DRACULA slamming a wooden door in the iconic 58' Hammer film.

THE SUPPLEMENTARY AND THESE DAYS EXPECTED EXTRAS for the Arrow films remaster include the compulsory audio commentary, this very enteraining and detailed yak track comes from  authors Stephen Jones and Kim Newman; there is also for those who want a little Fangoria stamp of approval in a optional 7-minute introduction to the film from Fangoria’s Chris Alexander; Ticket to Die, another 9-minute appreciation of the film by Steve Haberman; there's another chorus of approval, but with more weight from Night Train to Nowhere, which is a 15-minute appreciation of the film, but this time from producer Bernard Gordon by filmmaker Ted Newsom; Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express, a vintage 14-minute interview with director Eugenio Martin is probably the best of the bunch with BTS pics and stories of the cast and set; Notes From the Blacklist, a vintage 31-minute interview from 2005 with producer Bernard Gordon; Telly and Me, a vintage 8-minute interview with composer John Cacavas; the original theatrical trailer in HD; and a 32-page insert booklet with the essays Horror Express by Adam Scovell and Riding the Horror Express by Mike Hodges, as well as restoration. A rich bag of pickings, where Arrow has dug to find anything, that tries to make up for the problem that most releases face these days . . . little or no contribution material from Christopher Lee and nothing from Peter Cushing. I am sure any forum chats about this release will be littered with comparisons of the SEVERIN dvd and blu ray release.

IF FOR YEARS, YOU'VE BEEN stuck with a duff and sub-standard version of 'HORROR EXPRESS' buy your ticket and grab your copy now, of an exception remastering of a Cushing and Lee classic. It's all here and detail-wise, you'll be having hours of fun, visually spotting elements you could never have seen or spotted before. It really can not be  denied, this film has never looked or sounded better. Arrow has technically turned a well known and fan familiar terror train trip into what is a remastered, very SOUND and VISUALLY exciting, Monster hit Roller-Coaster ride! Well done, Arrow! 

CALLUM MCKELVIE SUNDAY NEW SERIES: HORROR EXPRESS

WE START A NEW SERIES this week and it’s time for me to get all nostalgic- at least personally so. Each week I try and do something different with my little post for PCAS, not actually an easy thing when writing weekly about the films of one actor! Of course I’m not suggesting that Peter Cushing’s life and rich filmography doesn’t provide ample room for creativity within my column, but more along the lines of how I structure my post it can be difficult to come up with some new and exciting.  

ALWAYS HOWEVER I TRY to make it as personal as possible. I’m following in the footsteps of many a great contributor to the site and lest I repeat what someone else has already said (and probably in words far grander than I could ever conjure) I like to let my personal opinion come through as much as possible. Usually then, I tend to follow a review or a ‘list’ format, be that a simple discussion of a film or ‘my top ten…etc. etc.’, but for the next new weeks I’ll be trying something completely different. Beginning with this discussion on Horror Express I’m going to randomly select films from Cushing’s filmography that I have something of a personal history with and, if you’ll allow me dear readers, tell you about it.

ABOVE: YOUR OPPORTUNITY TO WATCH THE WHOLE FILM! 

JUST PRESS PLAY!

BY THE TIME I came into contact with Horror Express, I would have been around age thirteen or fourteen. I’d already encountered a healthy number of Hammer and Amicus pictures by this point along with the odd Cushing feature made by neither studio. I can’t remember how I first became aware of the title (most likely by browsing Amazon or a HMV store) but I do remember when my attention was attracted enough for me to scour You-Tube for clips. You see, the scene with the guard when the creature attacks him, turning his eyes white and causing him to bleed from them, was the first scene in a Cushing picture that actively scared me.

IT'S AN ODD THING fear and truth be told the attraction when watching Horror from this period for me was never the possibility of being scared, but mostly the rich gothic atmosphere which these films were soaked in. Of course there was the odd title that really did get to me, the sequence in House of Wax where Price’s wax face is smashed away springs to mind along with more obvious ones such as The Innocents (1960). Cushing films though? Not really.

THAT WAS UNTIL HORROR EXPRESS of course. When I finally watched it I found that indeed the effect still lingered. The opening sequence with Lee in the cave, the mystery at the station, the creature breaking loose. The opening fifty minutes or so of the film were soaked in an atmosphere so palpable, with the creature shot so wonderfully in almost total darkness, as to genuinely have a frightening edge to them. Then it got WEIRD. To my 13 or 14 year-old self the final half of Horror Express, whilst certainly entertaining, was a total let down. The body swapping alien plot seemed like an entirely different film and any genuine menace was sorely lacking. I put the DVD on my shelf, watched it occasionally and thought nothing more on the matter.

CUT TO SEVERAL YEARS LATER. Me and some friends are having a get together…with some refreshments of course and I’m asked to pick a film that will entertain us. Browsing my collection I go through the usual suspects before landing upon...Horror Express. For a short while my finger hovered over the plastic case, half remembering a few genuinely shocking moments, some genuinely funny moments (intentionally and not), some awful model work and a bizarre alien plot. Realising that there was enough there for even the tamest of drinking games I grabbed it. 

AS WE WATCHED I was surprised by how much the film was enjoyed by the gathering and not just in a ‘laugh-at-it-cos-it’s-bad’ way. There were genuine gasps of shock, a lot of laughs at the dodgy train shots, continuous whistling of the theme and a cheer as the creature is destroyed.

THUS TO ME, Horror Express will forever be Cushing’s perfect midnight movie. Camp, over the top, ridiculous, violent (compared to many of Cushing’s films) but incredibly and undeniably fun. If you’re not a fan of this one, perhaps put off by the mix of ridiculous scenes and genuinely chilling ones, grab yourself some mates, beers and experience it how I did. It may not change your opinion but it does mean you’ll be in a room full of people screaming ‘Monster, we’re British you know!’ and that’s no bad thing.