By Geno McGahee
Vinegar Syndrome has done the horror fans a favor and has released the underrated horror anthology “NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR,” on Blu-ray. When it comes to horror anthologies, the typical ones that you hear of are CREEPSHOW and TALES FROM THE CRYPT, but there are some very decent ones that fly under the radar. One of those is the 1985 NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR, which is a very unique film for various reasons.
The first reason is that the tales were not meant to be in an anthology. This film actually takes three full length films and edited them into shorts. Another unique aspect of this film is a bad 80’s rock band singing a song, break-dancing, and pointing directly at the viewer. This segment is forced into this anthology for some reason, but maybe it may have been an attempt to appeal to the MTV generation. Whatever the case, it’s pretty amusing.
The wraparound story involves God (Ferdy Mayne) and the Devil (Tony Giogio) sitting on a train that is destined to crash and debating over souls to take. Each of the souls relate to one of the tales. We also have a conductor that keeps them company and then changes into a different actor during the rock band segments. The original actor must have been busy or disinterested.
The first tale is concerns Harry Billings (John Phillip Law). He drunk-drives his car off of a bridge on his honeymoon and his wife dies. He awakes in an asylum where young girls are being taken, raped and then chopped up. Billings has been conditioned to help the evil group by picking up women and bringing them there, but he eventually resists and fights and attempts to save a girl. Playing the role of evil goon is none other than Richard Moll. He overplays the role and makes a lot of mean faces along the way. His death is hilarious as well. Overall, the tale of Harry is pretty good. You can tell that it’s not the best edit of a feature film, but some narration helps piece it together. I liked it. I rate this tale a 6/10.
The second tale is about Gretta (Merideth Haze), a young girl that works at a carnival before a rich man picks her up and then puts her into porn. A college kid sees her in porn and falls in love with her and they eventually start dating. The rich guy doesn’t like to see his girl go, so he wants to get rid of the competition in a death game that he also plays. From deadly bugs to hanging 2000 pound wrecking balls on rope that is being cut to electrocutions, the death wish game is there for thrills and kills and some of the characters do die. This tale has a great character with a heavy Russian accent that laughs constantly. The Blu-ray combo pack comes with the movie “GRETTA”, which is the feature film that this tale came from. I’m looking forward to seeing that. For the short tale, it was pretty fun. I rate it a 7/10.
The third tale is based on a fantastic movie “THE NIGHTMARE NEVER ENDS.” This tale is actually put together the best out of the three. Olivier (Robert Bristol) has apparently never aged in over a hundred years. A Jewish man that survived the holocaust recognizes him and begs Lt. Sterne, played by the amazing Cameron Mitchell, to investigate. If Mitchell is in a film, you know that it has to be good. This tale is reduced to a war between Olivier and Claire (Faith Clift)…good versus evil…good actor versus terrible actress. We also see another appearance of Richard Moll as Claire’s husband and author of “God is Dead.” So, if you are a Moll fan, this movie is the movie for you. This tale alone is worth the price of admission and if you get the chance, watch the full version of this story. I rate the tale 8/10.
NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR is a very good horror anthology and it’s now on Blu-ray with the following bonus features:
• Restored in 2K from 35mm elements
• Bonus feature film: GRETTA (DVD only / Sourced from 1 inch Master)
• Interview with Producer/Director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen
• Interview with Assistant Editor Wayne Schmidt
• Commentary track by The Hysteria Continues
• Theatrical trailer
Rating: 7/10
