{"id":37379,"date":"2022-07-11T15:01:26","date_gmt":"2022-07-11T19:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=37379"},"modified":"2023-01-03T11:23:18","modified_gmt":"2023-01-03T16:23:18","slug":"bad-movie-monday-night-train-to-terror-1985","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2022\/07\/11\/bad-movie-monday-night-train-to-terror-1985\/","title":{"rendered":"BAD MOVIE MONDAY: NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR (1985)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When COVID shut down everything two years ago, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process maybe discover some weird obscure cinema that we might never have seen any other way. This series of reviews will feature highlights of those night, so you guys can share in the fun and maybe get some ideas for your own movie night.
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\nLast week I mentioned the worst (but still enjoyable) movie I\u2019d seen on Bad Movie Monday. The inescapable THINGS. This week I\u2019ll mention my favorite. NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR.<\/p>\n

Before I even start the review, I\u2019m going to admit something embarrassing about myself. I never watched this movie when it originally came out in the late eighties, despite the fact that it was fairly easy to find, because for some dumbass reason my deranged brain thought that this and TERROR TRAIN were the same film. They are very much not the same by the way, in case you also weren\u2019t sure. Terror Train is slasher movie made in 1980 with Jaime Lee Curtis and David Copperfield. Night Train to Terror is an anthology of three stories made in 1985 with Cameron Mitchell and Richard Moll. In fact, they really don\u2019t have anything in common except for the words Train<\/em> and Terror<\/em> in their titles. Apparently this was enough to fool me for nearly thirty-five years.<\/p>\n

Onto the review we go!<\/p>\n

The film opens on a train, a night train I suppose, as a band is playing the most stupidly catchy song I\u2019ve ever heard. They\u2019re just playing for no reason, in front of no audience, complete with choreographed dance numbers. I\u2019m pretty sure they\u2019re high. Anyway\u2026 We then cut to God and the Satan, yes this escalates quickly, as they sit in a private compartment on the same train. The two mention how the band is scheduled to die soon and must go to either Heaven or Hell. They then argue about the merits of salvation and damnation by watching Night Train\u2019s three stories.<\/p>\n

So far, this is fairly standard stuff. Actually, I\u2019d even say it\u2019s better than average. The musical number was dumb but fun, and Ferdy Mayne as God and Tony Giorgio as Satan are pretty good actors and they have some half-decent dialogue. No one\u2019s gonna win any awards, but it\u2019s not cringe-worthy or anything.<\/p>\n

However, the reason why Night Train is and shall always be in a class by itself is that all three stories in this anthology were originally full length films that had around seventy-five minutes of their runtime removed in order to create \u201csegments\u201d. If you think that sounds insane, keep reading.<\/p>\n

SEGMENT ONE: The Case of Harry Billings<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was originally an unfinished movie called \u201cScream Your Head Off\u201d that was later sort of finished almost a decade later under the title \u201cMarilyn: Alive and Behind Bars\u201d. It\u2019s the story of a man named Harry Billings who crashes his car on his wedding night and kills his new bride. He is then sent to an insane asylum where the Doctors brainwash him into kidnapping women so they can be murdered and sold for body parts.<\/p>\n

The above description doesn\u2019t do it justice if I\u2019m being honest. This is an utterly baffling weird mess with editing that is so ADHD that some scenes become comedic, even though they\u2019re not meant as comedy. It\u2019s like the story gets bored of itself and just goes \u201cEnough of that shit, here\u2019s some different shit!\u201d It\u2019s both bizarre and fascinating. This segment, like all the following segments, kind of defies being resumed in a synopsis. It\u2019s really not a story so much as \u201ca bunch of stuff randomly happening for reasons you\u2019re not always sure of.\u201d and that\u2019s kind of what I like about this movie. It keeps you on your toes if nothing else.<\/p>\n

SEGMENT TWO: The Case of Gretta Connors<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was originally an obscure movie called \u201cGretta\u201d or \u201cDeath Wish Club\u201d or \u201cThe Dark Side of Love\u201d or \u201cThe Carnival of Fools\u201d and is the story of a hapless college boy who becomes infatuated with a porn star called Gretta after seeing her in a stag film. The two begin a torrid affair that includes joining a club of thrill seekers who risk their lives in twisted and deadly games.<\/p>\n

Meredith Haze, who played Gretta Connors, is so awesome in this that I\u2019m sort of sad she never acted in another movie. She throws herself into the role with such fearless demented glee that you kind of don\u2019t care that she\u2019s not a super great actress. Of all three stories, this one is the most \u201ccomplete\u201d It has a few issues, mostly continuity, but it\u2019s a fairly linear affair for the most part. The ending comes out of nowhere, but that\u2019s the least insane thing that happens in Night Train.<\/p>\n

SEGMENT THREE: The Case of Claire Hansen<\/strong><\/p>\n

This was originally a movie called \u201cCataclysm\u201d or \u201cThe Nightmare Never Ends\u201d or \u201cSatan\u2019s Supper\u201d and is the story of a devout Christian and Doctor called Claire Hansen whose atheist Nobel Prize winning husband writes a book called \u201cGod is Dead\u201d. Toss in Nazis, Demons, and Cameron Mitchell and you have the makings of something pretty\u2026 uh\u2026 weird.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve managed to track down and watch all the full length movie versions of these segments. So I can say with some authority that this last one is the most modified from its original version. The first segment has added nudity and gore, and the second segment has a few extra special effects scenes, but this segment has a LOT of stop motion that was never in the original. I won\u2019t say it\u2019s a vast improvement, but it\u2019s certainly appreciated.<\/p>\n

Personally, the radically shorter running times didn\u2019t bother me at all. One of my biggest complaints about bad movies is that they never seem to end quickly enough. This is the main reason I\u2019ve never brought the two and a half hour long THE SWARM to Bad Movie Monday, even though I feel its genius and Michael Caine is a joy to watch. It\u2019s just too damn long. You can physically feel the weight of a bad movie after sixty minutes, and around the ninety minute mark you\u2019re just begging for it to end, by the one hundred and twenty minute mark your brain starts to melt from the badness. A long movie that\u2019s good<\/em> can be tiresome, imagine a bad one.<\/p>\n

So, in my opinion, NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR is the greatest bad movie of all time since you get three (four if you count the wraparound) for the price of one. You can\u2019t find a better bargain anywhere.<\/p>\n

Okay! Now that the review is done we arrive at my favorite part. This is where I make a list of ten things I promise will happen during the movie in order to get you in the mood of watching it. And so, without further ado\u2026<\/p>\n

PROMISES!<\/strong><\/p>\n

#1 \u2013 You\u2019ll be singing \u201cEverybody\u2019s got something to do. Everybody but youuuuuu!!!\u201d for days after watching this movie. In fact, you may never stop singing it.
\n#2 \u2013 You\u2019ll be thanking Ferdy Mayne and Tony Giorgio for doing the best they could with what they got. The mark of a genius actor isn\u2019t that they\u2019re good in a good movie it\u2019s that they\u2019re good in a BAD movie, and both Mayne and Giorgio are quite good here. Thank you Gentlemen.
\n#3 \u2013 You\u2019ll say \u201cWait\u2026 WHAT???\u201d about twenty times before this movie hits the twenty minute mark.
\n#4 \u2013 Meredith Haze is not shy about gratuititties, and bless her heart for that. She’s this movie’s MVP,
\n#5 \u2013 I\u2019m very sorry, but there will be terrible violence towards innocent bags of popcorn.
\n#6 \u2013 \u201cExcuse me while I smoke!\u201d will be your new catchphrase for a long time to come.
\n#7 \u2013 No movie can have enough Richard Moll, so he appears twice. Once as a bad guy in the first story and again as a completely different character in the third story.
\n#8 \u2013 Cameron Mitchell is comprised of 80% talent and 20% alcohol, or is it the other way around? Either way, he\u2019s always welcome in a film.
\n#9 \u2013 The last segment is both the longest and the most stop-motion animation heavy, and it is glorious to behold.
\n#10 \u2013 By the time the credits roll you\u2019re going to have a lot of questions about what the hell you just watched and I don\u2019t have a lot of answers.<\/p>\n

Both NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR<\/a> and GRETTA<\/a> are available on TUBI<\/a>, and I very much suggest you check them out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When COVID shut down everything two years ago, I started an online bad movie night get-together with some friends that we eventually dubbed \u201cBad Movie Monday\u201d. The premise was simple: We\u2019d torture each other every Monday with the worst trash we could find, tell a few jokes, cheer each other up, and in the process […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3070,12],"tags":[103,2951,477,2963],"class_list":["post-37379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-badmoviemonday","category-movie-reviews","tag-anthology","tag-bad-movie-monday","tag-horror","tag-jeremy-knox"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37379"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37389,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37379\/revisions\/37389"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}