Product: Night Train to Terror [VHS]
Rating: 2.0
What Do You Get When You Combine Three Awful Movies Into One? Night Train To Terror, That's What.
"Night Train to Terror" is a wretched combination of (apparently) three horrendously bad movies which have been edited down to a singular completely incoherent plot, with links added featuring good versus evil on a model train scheduled by Satan to crash at dawn, all combined in the format of a wretched music video from the 1980s, complete with breakdancing.The first storyline concerns a man who kills his wife by driving off a bridge, and who then becomes involved in a plot to remove organs (only from attractive women) and sell them to medical schools. Plot emphasis is on random gore (including the most unrealistic beheading ever), bad dreams, and lots of screaming, all tied together with no production values.After an intermission from the debate club on the train where horrible dialogue is exchanged (sample: "You have no tears; you don't know how to cry."; "I can laugh and cry at the same time.") interspersed with more of the same horrendous pop song and stock footage of a steam locomotive, the film progresses to subplot two, "The Case of Gretta Connors," which starts at a carnival with Gretta selling popcorn. Needless to say Gretta is a struggling musician and actress who only lives for stardom and playing the piano. She is quickly seduced by the evil George Youngmeyer, who puts her in risque movies. The oldest fraternity brother in history, Glenn, sees one of her films and falls in love with her. He then tracks her down (today this is called stalking) and they fall in love. George is furious and vows revenge. He involves them in something called "The Death Club" where members try to die in creative ways. I will tell you that while this movie is generally only worth one star (if that), I gave it a bonus star for the most hilarious special effect since "Robot Monster," namely the claymation "Tanzanian Winged Beetle" which could not be made funnier if they tried. The electrocution computer is also ludicrous as it melts the face of its randomly selected club member: watch for the classic line "Excuse me while I smoke." What isn't clear is why Glenn and Gretta decided to participate in this club if they were so in love and had such a lust for life. Also watch for the endless pontification on the subject of a wrecking ball, and a special guest appearance by Mark Ridley as Prince Flubutu.After yet more singing the same old song and even more breakdancing, the case of Claire Hansen delves into a confusing and sacrilegious subplot about good versus evil in Nazi Germany, which segues into an extended disco and claymation debacle of epic proportions. It's kind of like "The Omen" combined with "Can't Stop The Music." This story was the most pretentious and the most boring. Fortunately it's only a half hour until the train wreck, which features a terrible scale model which would embarrass the producers of the Godzilla series. Finally, after a bit more pompous pontification, we get to see yet more of the song ("Everybody's got something to do, everybody but you!"), and after another round of breakdancing the credits roll, and not a moment too soon.Although I am a hardened veteran of numerous B-movies, I found this one trying in the extreme: it took me four attempts to make it all the way through this mess. It turns out that when you put three otherwise awful films together into a single cinematic work that the synergistic effect does not improve them: to the contrary, the net result is one of the most jaw-droppingly bad films in memory.I do not recommend this movie for humans.