It stars Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, with Alberto de Mendoza, Silvia Tortosa, Julio Peña, George Rigaud, Ángel del Pozo, and Telly Savalas in supporting roles.
They are soon stalked, one by one, by an alien intelligence inhabiting the frozen body of an ancient primitive humanoid brought onboard by an anthropologist.
In 1906, Professor Sir Alexander Saxton, a British anthropologist, is returning to Europe by the Trans-Siberian Express from Shanghai to Moscow.
With the couple is their spiritual advisor, an Eastern Orthodox monk named Father Pujardov, who proclaims to Saxton that the contents of the crate are evil.
Saxton‘s eagerness to keep his scientific findings secret arouses the suspicion of Wells, who bribes a porter to investigate the crate.
"[5] Rumors that the train sets were acquired from the production of Doctor Zhivago[4] (or Nicholas and Alexandra)[6] were refuted by Gordon, who said in a 2000 interview that the model had been constructed for the feature film Pancho Villa.
It was produced on a low budget of $300,000, with the luxury of having three familiar genre actors in the lead roles; the filming began in December 1971.
[8] Securing Lee and Cushing was a coup for Gordon, since it lent an atmosphere reminiscent of the horror Hammer Films, many of which starred both actors.
[12] According to Martín, Spain, his native country, was where the film fared the worst, both critically and for its low box office revenue.
"I was a bit surprised myself at the film's popularity overseas, but it didn’t really do a great deal for my subsequent career", said Martin.
[17] In that episode, the film is the favorite of inventor Simon Sherman (portrayed by Justin Long), who had it placed as one of the interactive features in his virtual reality invention called the Immersopod.
While archive footage of Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing are used in the episode, Hannah Fierman portrays her rendition of Countess Irina Petrovsky, with whom Simon begins a relationship since he's had a crush on her since he was a young boy.