Movies
Horror Express
Cushing and Lee? Check. Ape-man alien that drains brains, and makes its victims bleed from their eyes while their pupils turn milky white? Check. Telly Savalas as a Siberian official without an accent? Check. Good effects? Check. Thick, gothic atmosphere? Check. Yeah, can’t really find a reason not to recommend Horror Express as a ridiculously good time.
Blu-ray Review
Mild spoilers
With Hammer leading the way for Euro-Horror from the mid-50’s to late 70’s, gothic charm became “the” style overseas. Spain, a country that now has a fairly healthy history of horror films, didn’t truly break into the genre game until the early 70’s with Paul Naschy flicks and Amando de Ossorio’s Blind Dead series. It was also during this time that Bernard Gordon, a writer blacklisted during the McCarthy era in Hollywood, started to move on from strictly writing to producing and teamed up with Eugenio Martin to make a handful of films, including Hunt The Man Down and Vendetta. In an attempt to get a piece of the pie, Martin and Gordon hired two of Hammer’s most well-known players, the great Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, trapped them on a train with an extraterrestrial caveman, and aimed for the stars – so to speak – with Horror Express, a pretty neat entry in Spain’s genre history books.
The plot of Horror Express isn’t nearly as impressive as all the elements crammed into the script. The entire film, aside from the first ten minutes, takes a cue from Agatha Christie’s Murder On The Orient Express and keeps all the action on the Trans-Siberian train, with Lee and Cushing acting like a duo of Poirots. They aren’t detectives per se, but by God, they’re going to find out what’s behind all the mysterious deaths with the help of microscopes, autopsies, and science! The reason for all the hullabaloo is a cadaver Professor Saxton (Lee) discovered on an expedition, which turns out to be an alien that takes on the appearance of its victims while absorbing their knowledge, much like the creature from John W. Campbell, Jr.’s Who Goes There?.
Like John Carpenter’s The Thing, also inspired by Campbell’s novella, Horror Express is this strange sort of stalk-and-slash flick where the villain is a virus and can be in anyone at any given time. The effects are pretty spectacular, given the era and budget, especially the brain molds and eye transformation scenes. Horror Express’ creature is also pretty unique in the sense that it’s fairly powerless when the lights are on, and can only reveal itself in darkness.
Cushing and Lee? Check. Ape-man alien that drains brains and makes its victims bleed from their eyes while their pupils turn milky white? Check. Telly Savalas as a Siberian official without an accent? Check. Good effects? Check. Thick, gothic atmosphere? Check. Yeah, can’t really find a reason not to recommend Horror Express as a ridiculously good time.
A/V
Horror Express is public domain and has been treated poorly since the dawn of the home video market. I’ve passed on numerous $1 bin copies over the years (stills that were posted online always looked ridiculously awful), so this review viewing was actually my first. Severin went back to the film’s original 35mm negative for a 1080p transfer that is merely good, not great. The source material is pretty lackluster and for the first ten minutes or so, there’s an aggressive amount of specks, scratches and fading. It clears up some, but still rears its head often enough, along with some digital artifacting. The color and detail is impressive though, and it really is the best transfer out there. The sound leaves a lot to be desired, even though both of its tracks are lossless – Spanish is Digital Stereo and English is Digital Mono. There’s a fair amount of hissing and crackling, and the dubbed voices seem to have been recorded at a much lower quality than Lee and Cushing.
Special Features
Introduction by Fangoria Editor Chris Alexander (06:50) – Chris Alexander gives a pretty lengthy intro (as far as DVD intros go), talking about how he found the film in the early 80s and shares a few nuggets of trivia about the production.
Murder On The Trans-Siberian Express (13:59) – Director Eugenio Martin’s interview is a bit disappointing, as he doesn’t seem especially comfortable speaking in English instead of Spanish. The film is very bizarre so there’s a lot to talk about, but he can’t seem to articulate very well and it’s a pretty boring chat overall. He hits all the obvious points (he loves Cushing, Lee and Savalas), but only glosses over conceptualization and special effects, which are easily the two most interesting things about Horror Express.
Notes From The Blacklist (30:30) – Originally produced for a DVD release of producer Samuel Bronston’s films that never came to be, this featurette focuses on writer Bernard Gordon’s blacklisting in Hollywood and how he started working for Bronston. He spends a good chunk of time talking about the production of 55 Days At Peking – which is, presumably, the DVD release this interview was intended for – and wraps up with his eventual segue into producing and the end of McCarthyism’s stranglehold on the film world. Oddly enough, there’s barely a mention of Horror Express.
Audio Interview With Peter Cushing (87:45) – God bless Severin for going all out with Horror Express; almost every supplement is extremely long and informative. The audio-only interview with Cushing – who has a reputation as being an extremely good interviewee and a gentleman through and through – from 1973 acts as a commentary for the film, playing over it until around ten minutes shy of its full runtime (it finished playing out though, minus sound for the finale, which is really weird). He talks about anything and everything, commenting on the bizarreness of the story, his friendship with Lee, and the production in general. Cushing is always a delight to listen to, and this interview is no exception.
Telly And Me (08:04) – Traveling to promote his album, composer John Cacavas met Telly Savalas by chance. A hotel clerk, who he had given a copy of his music to, passed it along to Savalas, who also happened to be a guest at the hotel. Cacavas was invited upstairs to listen to some music Savalas had recorded, which was apparently terrible, and Cacavas agreed to help him in exchange for a job composing film scores. The composer goes over most of his career, going into greater detail on his gigs with Savalas (Kojak, Horror Express, and his solo albums).
Ghostface is back on the big screen this weekend… well, sort of… with the release of Scary Movie, which marks the Wayans brothers’ return to the horror spoof franchise for the first time since Scary Movie 2 back in the day. It’s likely to be the talk of the horror community for the weekend, but don’t overlook the other six genre movies that were freshly unleashed today.
Here’s all the new horror that released on Friday, June 5, 2026.
The horror spoof franchise is back with Scary Movie now playing in theaters!
Marlon Wayans (“Shorty”), Shawn Wayans (“Ray”), Anna Faris (“Cindy”), and Regina Hall (“Brenda”) reunite for the new Scary Movie, with the cast also including Dave Sheridan, Lochlyn Munro, Cheri Oteri, Chris Elliott, Jon Abrahams, Damon Wayans Jr., Gregg Wayans, Kim Wayans, Benny Zielke, Cameron Scott Roberts, Heidi Gardner, Olivia Rose Keegan, Ruby Snowber, Savannah Lee Nassif, Sydney Park, and Felissa Rose.
Twenty-six years after outrunning a suspiciously familiar masked killer (“Ghostface”), the Core Four are back in the killer’s crosshairs and no horror movie IP is safe…
Scary Movie will slash through reboots, remakes, requels, prequels, sequels, spin-offs, elevated horror, origin stories, anything with the word legacy in it, and every “final chapter” that absolutely isn’t. A whole lot has changed in the horror genre since the Wayans Brothers were in charge of the franchise; their involvement ended with Scary Movie 2 back in 2001!
Michael Tiddes (A Haunted House) directs Scary Movie 6 from a script written by Marlon Wayans, Shawn Wayans, original Scary Movie director Keenen Ivory Wayans, Craig Wayans (Scary Movie 2), and Rick Alvarez (A Haunted House).
From IFC, shark attack movie Chum is now available on Digital.
Alice Eve (Haunting of Queen Mary) stars in shark attack movie alongside Eric Michael Cole, Jim Klock, Elle Haymond, Lisa Yaro, Johnny Gaffney, and Sarah Siadat.
This one sounds very similar to last year’s Dangerous Animals…
Here’s the plot: “A newlywed couple joins friends on a Mediterranean yacht excursion, only to find themselves caught between a predatory shark and a psychopathic killer in their midst-transforming a sun-drenched escape into a fight for survival.”
Jonathan Zuck directs Chum, from a script by Jonathan Zuck and Joe Leone.
Samara Weaving (Ready or Not 2: Here I Come) and Kyle Gallner (Strange Darling) come together in Carolina Caroline, a sexy crime thriller now playing in theaters.
It’s not a horror movie, mind you, but it’s worth a mention here all the same.
Kyra Sedgwick (Family Movie) and Jon Gries also star in the romantic crime thriller.
Director Adam Carter Rehmeier’s film stars Samara Weaving as Caroline Daniels, whose desire to leave her small Texas town brings her into the orbit of a charismatic con man (Kyle Gallner), and together they weave a path of crime and passion across the American Southeast.
Adam Rehmeier previously directed the films Dinner in America and Snack Shack.
Tom Dean wrote the screenplay for Carolina Caroline.
Similar to Steven Spielberg’s upcoming big screen blockbuster Disclosure Day, Signal One explores humankind’s enduring question: what if we aren’t alone in the universe?
The sci-fi thriller is now available on Digital.
Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan), Josh Hutcherson (Five Nights at Freddy’s), David Thewlis (Harry Potter), Raoul Bhaneja (Possessor), Emma Ho (“The Expanse”), and Dennis Quaid (The Substance) star in Signal One from director Jonathan Sobol (The Art of the Steal).
When tech billionaire Sam Houston (Quaid) hires the brilliant computer scientist Annika (Fuhrman), she ventures to an isolated facility run by the brilliant, nihilistic creator of LITTLEMOUTH, a machine which can communicate with alien intelligence.
Annika soon learns some humanity-altering facts: that we are not alone in the universe, that alien intelligences are communicating around us at every moment, and that we are likely too primitive to even remotely understand what they are trying to tell us.
When the goal of the endeavor shifts from listening to talking back, the project rapidly devolves into chaos. With contact comes consequences, and soon Annika and the team must work to ensure the very survival of our species.
A schoolyard dare becomes an urban legend in the creepypasta-inspired horror anthology The Summoning. The indie film is now available on Digital from Brainstorm Media.
“A babysitting gig becomes a nightmare of urban legend when three teens summon Baby Blue. Survival depends on uncovering the past to escape a mother’s wrath from beyond the grave.”
Felipe Vargas (Rosario, Hive), Sergio Gonzalez, Brandon Piskorik, Corey Benson Powers, and Brian Sepanzyk direct the segments. Valeria San Martín, Justina Ceballos, Daniela Flombaum, Nannu Spannauss, Agustín Olcese, and Giovanni Onetti star.
The Summoning is written by Camilo Zaffora.
Happy Death Day actress Jessica Rothe stars as a mom struggling to keep her grip on her sanity and memory in the mind-bending Affection, now available on Digital at home.
In Affection, “Afflicted by a mysterious condition that resets her memory, Ellie becomes trapped in a cyclical nightmare with a man who claims to be her husband. She soon must uncover the horrifying truth of her existence—before she forgets it all again.“
Joseph Cross (“Big Little Lies”) and Julianna Layne (“Chicago P.D.”) also star in the sci-fi horror thriller. Affection marks the feature debut by writer/director BT Meza.
Daniel Kurland wrote in his review out of the film’s premiere, “Affection is steeped in existential questions and fears that plague modern society, while it embraces the ethos of the ’80s through bold body horror. Add to that Rothe’s revelatory performance, and Affection is a hidden gem that will connect with your mind, body, and soul.”
Lucile Hadžihalilović’s latest dark fairy tale, The Ice Tower, loosely reimagines Hans Christian Andersen’s fable “The Snow Queen,” and it’s now streaming on Shudder.
In the ’70s set film, “Jeanne, a 15-year-old orphan, witnesses the shoot of a film adaptation of the fairy tale The Snow Queen, and she becomes fascinated by its star Cristina (Marion Cotillard), an actress who is just as mysterious and alluring as the Queen she is playing.“
Clara Pacini stars as Jeanne. August Diehl and Marine Gesbert also star in The Ice Tower, and look for a cameo from director Gaspar Noé (Climax, Irréversible).
“For me, The Ice Tower solidified Lucile Hadžihalilović’s place amongst the most fascinating creators of fairy tales today,” said distributor Yellow Veil Pictures co-founder Joe Yanick.
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