Are you looking for a good way “in” to low-budget, somewhat schlocky horror from the 60s and 70s? Look, I know that’s kind of a narrow question, but I actually WAS looking for a good place to start. So it wouldn’t surprise me if there were more people out there in a similar spot.

Despite my love of the classic Universal monster movies from the 40s and 50s and of the cheesy, tongue-in-cheek 80s horror of The Nightmare on Elm Street series, I never seemed to make much headway into the intervening landscape – dominated by Hammer horror and other similar “soft” horror films.

I’m not a fan of gore and overt, senseless violence, so a lot of modern horror is an automatic turnoff. But those wonderfully campy films from the 60s and 70s? How had they remained a cultural blind spot for me for so long?

So when I saw that Horror Express was getting a brand-new Blu-ray treatment from Arrow Video, I jumped. Here’s a film starring the dynamic duo of horror royalty: Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Lee plays an anthropologist who finds the “missing link,” and the film takes place aboard the Trans-Siberian Express.

Reader, that ticks ALL my boxes. As a Star Wars and Lord of the Rings fan, I adore watching Lee and Cushing in their prime. I also have a degree in anthropology, went to an archaeological field school for human origins, and have ridden the Trans-Siberian across Russia (though the opposite direction they’re traveling in the movie).

This was a no-brainer, for sure.

But the film itself! Well, let’s just say it delivers. It costars the fantastically over-the-top Telly Savalas. It’s got a haunting score (from composer John Cacavas) that you’ll find yourself whistling for days. It crosses so many genres, it’s easy to lose count. And the new release from Arrow just looks flat-out gorgeous.

The film got a brand-new 2k restoration, and it looks pristine. Sure, the entire film is available on YouTube (and apparently has been for years), but do yourself a favor and watch this new release. It’s stunning.

Horror Express doesn’t know what kind of film it’s supposed to be – and frankly, that’s its charm. It starts as a period costume drama (it’s set in 1906) crossed with a fairly routine horror/monster movie (with hints of a slasher pic because of the high body count) but then morphs into a science fiction story when we realize that our monster is actually a prehistoric alien who can jump between hosts. And somewhere toward the end, it morphs once again into a zombie film when the alien/monster (spoiler!) reveals an ability to resurrect all the corpses it left in its wake up to that point.

Really, it’s a thing of beauty.

I mean, I can nitpick, for sure. The first five minutes of the movie don’t do it any favors with its inability to just get basic facts right. It opens on a snowy, mountainous landscape and we see Lee discover his “missing link,” almost perfectly preserved in ice. The titles on screen tell us this is Sichuan Province in China. The narration, almost simultaneously, says he made the discovery in Manchuria. At best, that’s about a 1,300-mile discrepancy.

We then move to a train station where Lee (and his discovery) are boarding the Trans-Siberian for Russia. The titles tell us this is Bejing (which would make sense, since that’s where the train terminates). But Cushing, Lee, and ALL of the signs say this is actually Shanghai. Which makes no sense.

What if one of you is the monster?

Monster? We’re British, you know!

Geography notwithstanding, there’s a lot to adore about this movie. It doesn’t make a lick of sense, but that doesn’t matter. The ride is phenomenally fun, and all three stars totally give themselves over to their roles – especially Telly Savalas, who doesn’t even show up until the third act, more than an hour into the movie. But at that point, his portrayal of a crazed Cossack general is a welcome change of pace and dominates his scenes.

But it’s the details I love so much. The alien/monster can suck memories out through your eyes. The process turns your brain completely smooth (“as a baby’s bottom”) because memories make the wrinkles in your brain, apparently.

Also, did you know that if you take fluid from the eye of a dead person and examine it under a microscope, you can see the last thing that person saw? You totally can. I saw Lee and Cushing do it, so it must be true.

I joke because I really do love this movie. It manages to overcome its failings and defy the odds to be a genuinely fun movie. And now I need to binge the entire Lee & Cushing oeuvre.

Even better new? The new Arrow release is loaded down with a bevy of extras, including

• a brand-new audio commentary with Stephen Jones and Kim Newman
• an introduction to the film by journalist and Horror Express super-fan Chris Alexander
• “Murder on the Trans-Siberian Express”: an interview with director Eugenio Martin
• “Notes from the Blacklist”: Horror Express producer Bernard Gordon on working in Hollywood during the McCarthy Era
• “Telly and Me”: an interview with composer John Cacavas
• the original theatrical trailer
• a fully illustrated collector’s booklet with several essays about the movie

Whether you’re already a fan or are coming to the genre somewhat blind (as I did), this new release of Horror Express is a must have. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to go back to whistling the main theme now.

(Disclosure: Arrow Video provided a review copy of this release. All opinions remain my own.)