Video Nasty #16- Night Train Murders

(1975)
Director: Aldo Lado
Writers: Aldo Lado, Roberto Infascelli, Renato Izzo, Ettore Sanzo

Night Train Murders (a.k.a. Late Night Trains, Don't Ride On Late Night Trains, Last Stop On The Night Train, Last House- Part II, New House On The Left, Second House On The Left, Torture Train, and Xmas Massacre) doesn't try to hide the fact that it is ripping off Wes Craven's Last House On The Left. In fact, the entire marketing campaign seems to have been built around it with many posters stealing the tagline of "Keep Repeating... It's Only A Movie..." or the variant "You Can Tell Yourself It's Only A Movie... But It Won't Help!" But just because it's clearly imitating another movie doesn't mean that it doesn't have any merit.

The film begins with a rather upbeat song and scenes of a busy city which include our main characters, two young women who are taking an overnight train from Germany to one of the girl's parents' house in Italy where they plan to spend Christmas. Meanwhile, two thugs running from the police sneak aboard the crowded train. The girls eventually run into the thugs and help them to hide from the ticket collector. One of the thugs sneaks into the restroom after a wealthy older woman (Macha Meril, the psychic from Dario Argento's Deep Red) whom he intends to rape, however she willingly consents to the act and eventually becomes a sort of mother-like figure to the group. Meanwhile, the other thug stirs up trouble when he threatens a family with his switchblade. Feeling uncomfortable with the increasingly disturbing behavior on the train, the two young ladies transfer to a different, less crowded train only to find that the two thugs and the wealthy woman have followed them.

If you've seen Last House On The Left, the rest of the movie should provide no surprises for you. Unlike Last House On The Left however, there is no goofy music to break up the tension but instead a wonderful score by Ennio Morricone. Night Train Murders plays out like a less gritty, more stylish European version of Last House On The Left. Because of this take, I would say that Aldo Lado's Night Train Murders actually feels sleazier than Last House On The Left.

Obviously, with so many similarities to the already banned Last House On The Left, it's easy to see why Night Train Murders was added to the Video Nasty list. Violence against women was certainly a hot-button topic for the BBFC and Night Train Murders has it in spades. That being said, it's a beautifully shot film and even though it's a bit derivative, it's still a must-see for any fan of seventies-era exploitation cinema. 4 1/2 out of 6 beers.

New Rating Sytem

Here it is, a simpler rating scale for the movies I review! Films will now be rated on a scale of zero to six beers. Here's a general breakdown of the new rating system.

0 Beers = This film has no redeeming value at all. If you find a copy of it, destroy it for the sake of all mankind.

1 Beer = Terrible. Avoid at all costs.

2 Beers = Bad. Could be fun with a few beers, but mostly awful.

3 Beers = Average. Nothing spectacular, but could be enjoyable.

4 Beers = Good. Should be a fun time.

5 Beers = Great. An excellent film.

6 Beers = Flawless. You must seek this film out and see it by any means possible. Even if it involves murder.

The first movie to be rated under the new system will be Night Train Murders, which will go up tomorrow. Because Night Train Murders takes place during Christmas, it also works as a segue into next month's 25 Days Of Horror!

October Horror Movie Challenge- Day 31

The last day started with Dear Dead Delilah (1972). It's an average slasher involving a matriarch of a wealthy southern family and her relatives that are trying to find her hidden inheritance. It wasn't bad, but it was a bit slow for me. 6 out of 12 beers.

Next up was movie number seventy-five, Demon Wind (1990). I vividly remember seeing the box for this back in the day, but for whatever reason I never rented it. My initial thought was that it was a film about what happens when you fart on Halloween, however it turns out that it involves a group of friends who go to check out a house that one of them has inherited and find out that they can't leave. The land is cursed by something or other and demons start popping out of the woodwork, possessing their friends, and just causing a lot of mayhem in general. Demon Wind had a lot of cool practical effects that kept me entertained, but a pretty forgettable story. 7 out of 12 beers.

Not satisfied with just seventy-five movies, I decided to make it an even seventy-six with Wicked, Wicked (1973). Wicked, Wicked is the first and only movie ever filmed in Duo-Vision, which is really just split-screen. The plot concerns a hotel in which a murderer is killing blondes that check in and making it look like they skipped out on their bill. It's pretty typical slasher fare and the only thing interesting about it is the gimmick of Duo-Vision, which originally intended for the movie to be screened on two separate side-by-side screens. It can be a bit confusing sometimes when there are two entirely different scenes playing out on each side of the screen, but somehow it works. Probably the most interesting aspect of the Duo-Vision in the movie is when characters are talking about something that happened on one side of the screen, while a flashback is shown on the other side of the screen. Wicked, Wicked is an oddity and should definitely be viewed as an example of an interesting gimmick that just never took off. 8 out of 10 beers.

And that wraps it up for the October Horror Movie Challenge. Here's a couple of fun facts for you:

A whopping 46% of the movies viewed were made in the last 5 years.

16% of the movies viewed were sequels or reboots.

9% of the movies viewed were about Bigfoot.

In my month of horror movie viewing, I witnessed 62 separate pairs of breasts.

My top picks for the month: Blood Harvest, Twisted Nerve, Don't Go In The Woods, The Poughkeepsie Tapes, Dead Snow 2, Horns

Avoid at all costs: Under The Skin, Leprechaun Origins, The Brain Machine, V/H/S: Viral, Caesar & Otto's Summer Camp Massacre, Hysterical Psycho

I learned this month that 75 movies is my absolute limit, unless I lose my job. There were a lot of bad movies, but there were also quite a few good ones. Overall, I had a blast. I don't think I'll do this again next year, but we'll see.

I've decided that from this point on I will be using a simplified six-beer rating system as a twelve-point scale is a bit too difficult to work with. I'll try to unveil that along with a new video nasty review sometime during November, then in December I will be premiering the 25 Days Of Horror. Each day leading up to Christmas, I will review a different Christmas-themed horror movie in no particular order. So look forward to that.

October Horror Movie Challenge- Day 30

Day thirty began with Horns (2013), the story of Ig Parrish (Daniel Radcliffe) whose girlfriend turns up dead after he gets blackout drunk. The entire town blames Ig for her death, but he maintains that he is innocent. One morning he awakens to find horns growing out of his head and finds that they give him a strange power over people. He uses his new-found power to get to the bottom of his girlfriend's mysterious death. Horns is based on a book by Joe Hill (Stephen King's son) which I have never read, but am now curious to. The film seamlessly mixes laughs and thrills and was an all-around fun time. 10 out of 12 beers.

Next up was Screaming For Sanity: Truth Or Dare III (1998), the second sequel to the 1986 disasterpiece Truth Or Dare?- A Critical Madness. You have to give director Tim Ritter credit, he just keeps making Truth Or Dare movies even though he probably should have stopped at one. He's even working on Truth Or Dare 5, which unfortunately didn't get funded but will hopefully still get made. Truth Or Dare 3 focuses on Clive, the father of the baby that original Truth Or Dare Killer Mike Strauber ran over in the first movie. Clive takes the mantle of the Copper-Masked Killer to seek vengeance on people that are making money on his family's tragedy and it's up to Dr. Hess, the orderly that let Mike Strauber escape the first time, to stop him. Truth Or Dare 3 is not a good film by any means and it certainly can't stack up to the chaotic fun of the original, but it is imaginative. Truth Or Dare is the franchise no one asked for, but Tim Ritter is going to give it to you whether you want it or not, and I say good for him! 4 1/2 out of 12 beers.

I actually really enjoyed the first two V/H/S movies even though some of the segments fell a bit flat, so I was looking forward to checking out V/H/S: Viral (2014). With Viral, the V/H/S series has jumped the shark. The wraparound story makes absolutely no sense, is annoying to watch, and has little if anything to do with VHS tapes. Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is the same way. "Dante The Great" is okay, but the person making it either had no idea what a found-footage movie was or just didn't care as we are often treated to shaky scenes where there are obviously no cameras. "Parallel Monsters" is a decent effort, and "Bonestorm" (which I'm pretty sure is the name of a video game from The Simpsons) has a lot of cool effects but ultimately doesn't pay off. The fourth segment, "Gorgeous Vortex" was cut from the film for unknown reasons before it's release. Judging from the rest of the film, it's probably not too good. 2 out of 12 beers.