Oct 20, 2014

20 of 31: Train (2008)

A vain attempt by a formerly prolific blogger to review 31 new (to me) horror films in the 31 days of October. We did it last year and it was a gas. Can we do it once more? Let's find out.
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Platform: HBO Go on Roku
Starring: Thora Birch

Here's a weird concept. A group of American college wrestlers, male and female, are participating in tournament somewhere in Eastern Europe. After one of the matches, a few of them sneak out to go to a local rave/sex party that they were invited to by one of their opponents. They wind up missing their train with the rest of the team the following morning and they accept the offer of a strange woman to ride another train that will get them to Odessa with their coaches so they can meet up with the rest of the team. Seems sketchy, at best.

What follows can basically be summed up by calling this Hostel on a train. There are some vicious, sadistic fucks who operate the train, and they prey upon unsuspecting tourists like our wrestling team. You see, one of the cars on the train is a fucked-up torture chamber. I always check to make sure my train doesn't have one of those when I travel the rails. One by one, our intrepid wrestlers get snatched up and tortured by the train crazies. I'm not sure I understand the point of it all. Organ harvesting is the idea, but it's really poorly executed. Seems like a bit much, if you ask me.

I had read that this was originally going to be a straight remake of Terror Train from 1980 starring Jamie Lee Curtis. THAT was a fun horror flick. Lone psychopath out for revenge during a costume party hosted on a train. But the studio decided to go with torture porn, which was all the rage last decade. Bad choice. Fucking horrendous choice.

Hardly anything in this movie makes any sense. It's poorly written, plotted, paced, directed and acted. Do yourself a favor and skip this turd of a film. Easily one of the most ridiculous things I've ever seen.

Verdant Dude Rating: 0 out of 5 pumpkin ales. 

2 comments:

Waterlogged Canine said...

I give as many fucks as you give pumpkin ales to Train.

Verdant Earl said...

WLC - Zed.