(Review originally written at 23 October 2004)
The first halve of this movie is pretty standard seventies horror stuff like featured in most of the old Hammer movies. The second halve however really surprised and impressed me. I loved it!
I really love old-horror movies with both Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee in it. In this movie they are better than ever together. Their acting is superb and so is the rest of the cast even though it is a bit strange that almost all of the Russians are played by Spanish people. Telly Savalas also shows up in a fun role. Savalas is probably best known for portraying Ernst Stavro Blofeld in the James Bond movie "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" but he also played in classics like: "Cape Fear" (1962), "Kelly's Heroes", "Capricorn One" and "The Dirty Dozen". It's wonderful to see such fine acting in one movie because normally mainly it are just only Cushing and Lee who are the only good actors in a movie like this.
Also this movie is actually scary and gory and it has a really good atmosphere. It starts like some kind of monster movie like "Creature From the Black Lagoon" but the second halve of the movie is more like a Zombie movie like "Lifeforce" (which is an underrated horror classic in my opinion with a great soundtrack). A combination that worked really well for me.
The story stays simple and of course ridicules but it still is better than 90% of the other movies from the same genre and it actually goes deeper in trying to explain some of the things.
In my opinion a real horror classic!
8/10
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