Night Train to Terror

I first watched this on a drunken movie night binge and we were so impressed we played it twice: Half of which was due to being able to make zero sense of what was going on. Under initial scruitiny, the film appeared to be three features that had been edited down to become "chapters" in an athology piece, and ten minutes or so of research proved that to be true: NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR is actually three features from director John Carr, two of which were miserable bombs and one of which was apparently never finished, that the producer[s] then cut down to the barest minimum of footage deemed necessary to make them into the anthology chapters.

The most popular & memorable of the three is actually the unfinished SCREAM YOUR HEAD OFF with the great John Phillip Law in what would have been another one of those sad exploitation & horror films he was reduced to appearing in just to keep up on the alimony payments in the late 70s/early 80s. Because the film was never finished & trimmed down to about 27 minutes or so of footage, what we are left with is a dizzying tale about an insane asylum that is a front for a body parts harvesting organization, with Law being their latest recruit to be hypnotized, go out into the world & drug people [usually attractive B movie would have been starlets], bring them back to the asylum and turn them over to Richard Moll [billed as Charles Moll] who straps them down to gurneys, strips them nude, molests/assaults them, and then uses a hacksaw & other implements to carve off the marketable portions. Along the way we get a sexy head nurse Ratchet from hell, a lobotomized asylum director, John Phillip Law singing a church hymn, and what would have been the finest American made Mad Asylum thriller since DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT, which this movie is very reminiscent of. Gory, filled with exploitative nudity and utterly incomprehensible, this is my favorite of the bunch as well & the lost footage should be resurrected for a reconstruction -- It'd be an instant classic.

Part two is actually all that is left of what was known as DEATH WISH CLUB, a straight to video bomb that actually is very reminiscent of Jess Franco's exploitation/murder mystery hybrids & shares their air of tacky immediacy. A not so young couple run afoul of a pornographer who enrolls them in a suicide thrill club, with results that are utterly hilarious and, again, edited down to the point where the film has no continuity on it's own and had to have a voiceover narration explain the events which unfold. They are not bothering mentioning, but the claymation killer bug is, a device that Carr apparently became enamored enough with to invest a serious amount of screen time to it in the next chapter;

CATACLYSM. This was another home video only bomb that actually did find a release & is the least comprehensible of the three: What starts out as a sort of (...) Atrocicties From The Past bit turns into a confrontation against the Antichrist that allows for Carr to do a series of claymation sequences involving a giant Golem like creature run amok, as well as the anthology's most extensive use of his trademark horror gimmick: Having a victim electrocuted so that their head begins to shake back & forth like one of those mechanical paint shakers, while the flesh sizzles & smokes & melts off the skull [when allowed to run it's course]. While this may sound "gross" it looks about as realistic as his claymation Golem, and makes for laugh out loud moments that lovers of trash horror will go bonkers for.

Linking these three segments are a series of discussions between God and Satan [both played by Cameron Mitchell, who also plays the detective in the CATACLYSM segment] who are presiding over a train wreck about to happen. How this movie came to be in the form it exists as may be one of the great puzzles of the 1980's. If you are looking for meaningful plots, convincing performances and deft filmmaking, this title is not advised. But if you want a movie that will demand repeat viewings, elicit repeat laughter & cheers as well as jeers, this DVD is the best money you can spend on entertainment this side of ZOMBIE LAKE or KING KONG VERSUS GODZILLA.

Of additional note: (...)