This film from director Carr from 1985 is best viewed late night by adults. It may appear tame by today's horror standards, but I found it genuinely disturbing and frightening in some parts. The 80's milieu is clearly stamped on this film. A group of partying teens dance on a train that's bound for destruction while dancing to a song "Dance With Me" in a segment that is straight out of early MTV. On this same train God and the Devil make a wager a la Job from the Old Testament and the classic struggle between good and evil ensues. What follows are totally unrelated vignettes. The first is that of Harry Billings (John Phillip Law) who becomes the victim of a mad hospital who abuses their patients and severs certain marketable body parts which they sell to students in medical schools. The doctors do not use anesthesia. The second story is about a young girl who is trapped in the world of pornography and a Death Wish Cult who plays a vicious game of fatal Russian Roulette. It culminates in a disgusting and graphic scene in which a Jimmy Hendrix type is electrocuted to a crisp. Very violent! Not for the faint of heart! The last story is about an ex-Nazi who turns out to be none other than the Devil himself. He marries a good woman Claire who is on to his evil plot after he reveals his atheism in a Nietzchean book "God is Dead". She consults the help of a priest and with a mystic box made of the True Cross embarks on a perilous journey to defeat the forces of darkness. All these stories could have been expanded more at length, but apparently the director ran out of time and had to piece them together. There is some degree of humor, though mostly dark, but generally, this is one of those films that is so bad that it's good. It has acquired a cult classic fandom. Among one of the jokes is the supposed cast listing of God and Luci-Fer as themselves.
Review of Night Train to Terror
