Night Train To Terror

Night Train to Terror is one of those anthology movies, basically a collection of short stories. This one has 3 tales along with a frame story. It's full of demon monsters and evil men.

The frame story is God and Satan sitting in a train car talking about humanity. They argue about which humans belong to each of them and watch the tales unfold after which they talk about the fates of the people. Along with them is a very 80's band performing a pop rock tune music video style along with a full supply of choreographed dancers. It's not a terrible tune but is terribly overused.

The first story follows Harry who gets into a car accident while driving to his honeymoon. His bride doesn't survive but somehow he wakes up in a sanatorium. The people that run the place drug him and use him to lure in beautiful women who they chop up for their body parts. The story doesn't make much sense for the longest time. It seems like just a bunch of random scenes. It does come together finally, but could be a lot better of a plot.

Next is the story of Gretta who wants to be famous. George, a tycoon type, lures her into doing pornos. Gregg is a college kid who sees one of Gretta's movies and falls in love with her. He tracks her down and they fall in love. George is hacked off that his meal ticket has been taken away from him so he gets the couple involved with a weird Russian Roulette kind of game hoping to get Gregg out of the way. At first the couple plays willingly, but George is not above forcing them at gunpoint.

Last is a story about Claire, a devout Catholic married to a man who is making a living off of preaching that God is dead and Jesus Christ is a work of fiction. Meanwhile a holocaust survivor sees the face of a war criminal, but the guy is impossibly young to have lived during WWII as an adult. Are there demonic forces at work in all of this? Claire will have to face off against the powers of darkness.

This is a very corny movie that relies a lot on shock value. Its monsters are stop-motion animated clay and look terribly unrealistic. Some of the acting sucks but some of it is OK. I kind of liked the guys playing God and Satan (played by Lu Sifer which gave me a chuckle), and Charles Moll (who appears in 2 of the stories) is OK. You might know him better as Richard Moll (the name difference made me initially think they were relatives rather than the same person).

The music video scenes are overdone, like I said before. They play the same song over and over. Maybe if they had changed up the music some it would have been better. I guess the main purpose of these moments is to let you know this is a movie that does not take itself seriously which is actually one thing that keeps it from being awful.

The narration is overused some. The fight choreography is pretty lame. Some of the non-creature special effects look fake though some of it looks OK. So really it just comes down to being a bad shock-value horror movie that will either entertain you with its goofiness or disgust you.

MORALITY:

There are several shots of nudity including some full-frontal glimpses. One of these is during a porno sex scene (though of course we only see enough to get the idea that it's a porno, the scene is not actually XXX rated itself).

Violence is frequent and graphic. We see decapitations, extreme electrocutions, heart removal surgery, and body parts that have been cut up and stored.

The strong language is surprisingly mild.

SPIRITUALITY:

Obviously this is a movie that uses a lot of spiritual imagery. If you don't take it too seriously it could be amusing, but many who follow God could easily find themselves put off. The most bothersome moments for most are likely to be the claims that attack God and push Jesus as fiction. There are a couple of things to keep in mind. The arguments use obviously faulty logic, there are demonic influences surrounding the character, and the film as a whole doesn't take the position that God is dead since He is an active character Himself. If anything that part of the story indirectly suggests that such claims are lies of the demonic realm.

While the conversation between God and the Devil isn't how I imagine such a moment since the redeeming action of Christ would surely come up. “Oh, you want to claim this person for your own, Devil? Remember that time you killed my son who was innocent? Yeah, his death is going to count for Joe there.” Even so, this fictitious, not so serious conversation, has Mr. Lucifer in the position of accuser while God prefers to see the positive in people.

FINAL THOUGHTS:

If this were a more serious film with less focus on shock-value I think it could find an audience in the religious community. Even those that hold the same view that I do, God's going to bring up the death of Jesus when the Devil gets his prosecutor pants on, could enjoy the banter here as God sees the good in the people that the Devil hates. At the same time, the fact that this film doesn't take itself too seriously is what saves it from being too ridiculous to bear. It's not a great movie, but it's amusing if you come at in the right frame of mind.

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