Overrated and overhyped

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

This is Italy's version of Wes Craven's The Last House On The Left, though I have to say I prefer this film. For the main reason is there's no annoying music on this film. Also, it's more throughout and deeper in psychological content. The principles are the same, here you have two girls on their way out to the country for the Christmas holidays. While on the train they meet the two thugs, who have previously mugged a street Santa. Their attack is unbeknown to the girls so they are friendly with the two men. Though as the train travels further they become more wary of the pair and the blonde woman the men have met. When the train is stopped for a bomb search the girls hop off the train to board another. It's not until they're on the move that the girls realise the trio had hopped trains too. From here on in things get nasty, violent, and cruel.It's these scenes that are the hardest to watch as they lead to the girl's deaths. However, this isn't where the movie stops It's the second half which treads on the unbelievable. The evil trio is picked up by the girl's parents. Who, when they realise what's happened, take their revenge. It's the coincidence of the group meeting that stretches the boundaries of reality.That said, that incident is the only issue I have with the film.It's Macha Meril as the lady on the train that gives this film a nasty and depraved edge. In the beginning, she appears to be a reserved nymphomaniac. Though when they start to torture and rape the girls she's the one who's controlling the thugs, even though she's only known them for a matter of hours. She is definitely twisted and coldly calculating. She stole the show.Even though you know what's going to happen and you probably know how the film will end, the director Aldo Lado does a fantastic job of weaving a subtle and disturbing story into a watchable film with believable characters. It's nice that he doesn't go the exploitation route, especially in the torture sequences. The reality of the scenes really strengthens the film.I cannot say I really enjoyed this film as some of the scenes are disturbing, both visually and psychologically. It is, however, truly watchable and does emote emotions. It is a film that I may watch again... though not for some time.

Finally, a pleasant surprise! From several points of view. First, an original script signed Roberto Infascelli, Renato Izzo, Aldo Lado, Ettore Sanzo. Then, well directed and starred. All the actors are natural, especially the great Enrico Maria Salerno. Then Macha Méril, perfect in a role of perverse, depraved, nymphomaniac, bigoted woman. Very good Irene Miracle and Laura D'Angelo, as two beautiful young women who will die on the train. Last but not least, Flavio Bucci and Gianfranco De Grassi, very good as the two villains criminals. Franco Fabrizi, another great Italian actor, is OK in a minor role of a voyeur. In an even more minor role of a nurse, Dalila Di Lazzaro, who had to do some special roles in other Italian future films. The music of the giant Ennio Morricone is unfortunately almost nonexistent. Instead, the cinematography signed by Gábor Pogány is absolutely excellent. Congratulations to Aldo Lado, the director, who has indeed as a trademark: Dry, unemotional tones. There is also a nice song by Demis Roussos at the beginning and at the end of the movie.

The sole purpose of this miserable exercise in sadism can be readily understood once you know that one of its alternate titles was Second House On The Left. However, while the entire structure of this woeful misfire was blatantly lifted from Wes Craven's infamous grindhouse offering, Night Train Murders features none of Last House's menace or nihilistic potency.The familiar plot follows two young girls taking a train ride home for the holidays. Unbeknownst to them, they are sharing their vessel with a pair of volatile cretins, one of whom makes the acquaintance of a kinky cougar whose turn-ons apparently include being sexually assaulted while she's using the restroom. After this encounter with her rapist Romeo, the smitten kitten accompanies her two new besties as they corner and abuse the unsuspecting young ladies in their on-board compartment. Both girls are eventually killed, and our treacherous trio disembarks the train undetected, at which point they receive assistance from a kindly doctor who takes them back to his house. Of course, the doctor is actually the father of one of the girls, and when he learns about the crimes his house-guests have committed, he metes out a brief serving of unspectacular vengeance. The end. The pace of the film is maddeningly slow, and the first 50 minutes are largely devoted to needless exposition meant, ostensibly, to show us that these girls' parents love them (because we couldn't figure this out without numerous scenes reinforcing this, apparently). We also spend an inordinate amount of time meeting the other passengers on the train, which ultimately serves no purpose since they are all utterly inconsequential in the events that follow. I suppose this extended intro is meant to generate suspense, but since we already know exactly what's going to happen, these dead-end set-ups and lingering shots of empty corridors and occupied compartments will only be of interest to viewers who are curious what the interiors of passenger trains looked like in the 1970's. While all this tedium is unfolding, the two most critical characters in the piece are barely sketched out, and all we really learn about the young travelers before they get tortured and maimed is that one of them is a virgin and they like smoking cigarettes.While the catalog of atrocities in Last House On The Left was wholly believable because that film's victims were taken to a stretch of secluded wilderness where they were stranded and helpless, the ability of these thugs to commit their depraved acts on a moving train loaded with passengers defies all reason. Making the notion even sillier is the fact that the compartment in which the rape and murder games take place is equipped with glass doors which offer a clear view inside for anyone who would happen to walking by. Despite our seeing a fairly extensive roster of riders and staff patrolling the transport throughout the film, only one other passenger stumbles across the scene during the cycle of extended torment; the bizarre and sickening result is that this voyeuristic witness chooses to eschew helping the poor girls in favor of simply enjoying the show, and when he is discovered and dragged into the room, he takes initiative and eagerly participates in the happenings, raping one of the girls himself before exiting the compartment and going about his business like nothing occurred. Further stretching the bounds of credibility is how little effort the victims make to try to escape or call for help, and how easy it is for the killers to throw a dead body out the window of a moving locomotive without anyone else on the train noticing.I don't intend to suggest that a film like this should show sexual violence in unflinching detail, but what occurs here is so clumsily staged that it isn't even particularly shocking, it's mostly just silly. The film does make one obvious attempt to one-up the cavalcade of carnage in Last House, and the method of execution one of the girls endures is a truly vile and tasteless bit of cruelty that is destined to be the one thing you'll remember about this movie. Yet, even the film's lone sequence of of truly effective horror is portrayed as a graceless farce, so as awful as the moment is to view, it still doesn't pack the emotional and visceral punch a revenge narrative like this depends on.The acting here is uniformly abysmal, and the psychotic tormentors come across like generic caricatures. Worse, their diminutive statures and stagnant personae strip them of their ability to be intimidating and make it even more difficult to accept that the girls don't really fight back during their ordeal. Even the parents, who obviously occupy a vital role in the climax, respond to their dark discovery with melodramatic hysterics, and the comeuppance the film is building toward from the first frame on is so terse and hurried that it offers very little payoff for the deeds we've been forced to sit through.A special WTF prize goes to whoever chose the syrupy song that plays over the opening and closing credits, which is most assuredly the least appropriate accompaniment to a film about rape and murder that I've ever heard (sample lyrics: "Find a way to live your dreams, you can make it if you try").Since this movie was clearly intended to conjure up the same frenetic intensity that made Last House On The Left such a haunting and unforgettable journey, the fact that it's more dull than disturbing surely qualifies it as an utter failure. In the end, Night Train Murders is certainly an unpleasant film to watch, but for all the wrong reasons.

Director Aldo Lado is doubtlessly best known for his beautiful and eerie Gialli "La Corta Notte Delle Bambole Di Vetro" ("Short Night of the Glass Dolls" / "Malastrana", 1971) and "Chi L'ha Vista Morire?" ("Who Saw Her Die?" / "The Child", 1972). And rightly so, as "L'Ultimo Treno Della Notte" ("The Night Train Murders", 1975) isn't nearly as good nor as elegant as the man's Gialli. A blatant rip-off of Wes Craven's Exploitation classic "The Last House on the Left" of 1972 (which itself is a remake of Ingmar Bergmann's 1960 film "The Virgin Spring"), "The Night Train Murders" bears no surprises, and only few elements that make it worthwhile, other than a score by Ennio Morricone. "The Last House on the Left" spawned a variety of (mostly Italian) rip-offs in the following years, including Ruggero Deodato's ultra-nasty "House on the Edge of the Park" (1980), and one must sadly say that this is one of the less interesting ones. Personally, I have never been the biggest fan of Craven's film, but it is doubtlessly a milestone that was disturbing, genuinely shocking and unforgettable once one has seen it. This film has no originality, and while it has the potential to shock and disturb, it only does so in a depressing manner.***Warning! BIG SPOILERS!!!*** Lado simply takes the story of Craven's film and transfers it into a train. Laura (Martina Berti) and Margaret (Irene Miracle) are going by train from Munich to Verona in order to spend the Christmas holiday with Laura's family. Two lowlife scumbags and a perverted bitch (played by Macha Méril, who is best known for her role in Argento's "Profondo Rosso" from the same year) begin to harass the two girls, later rape them. Later they accidentally kill one of the girls in a sadistic game, the other girl throws herself out of the window of the running train and dies. As it happens, fate then leads the three scumbags to the house of Laura's parents, and her dad is eager to take bloody revenge for his little girl...No surprises here, just an exact copy of the plot of "The Last House on the Left", only that it isn't as effective and the ending is very lame. At least in Craven's film we saw all the scumbags wiped out by the parents, whereas in this film, the crazed female culprit, probably the worst of the pack, is still breathing by the film's end. Now that's what I call depressing: Having to see the poor girls tormented and killed first, and then not even having the opportunity to see all those responsible die agonizing deaths - this kinda makes you feel cheated as a viewer."The Night Train Murders" is very sadistic, but actually pretty tame in its actual depiction of gore and sleaze compared to other films of the kind. Even though i obviously didn't like this film, I have to say that it does have some good aspects. The performances are above average for a low-budget exploitation feature, particularly the beautiful Macha Méril, whose face every Italo-Horror fan will recognize from Argento's "Profondo Rosso", is wonderfully diabolical in the role of the perverted bitch she plays. The score by Ennio Morricone is good, of course, and there is one sequence that, even though depressing, goes beyond the plot of "Last House on the Left" and therefore can be applauded for its uncompromising character: The sequence in which a spectator, instead of helping the girls or calling for help happily joins their rapists once invited. Though unpleasant to watch, this scene uncompromisingly visualizes the rotten character of so many 'square' people who are always happy to do evil things, as long as they are not likely to get caught.Still, "The Night Train Murders" is a disappointment in my eyes. The film's utterly depressing character isn't necessarily a flaw, in my opinion. I tend to love depressing, shocking and disturbing Exploitation films. This one just has no originality, and in the end it just leaves a feeling of emptiness, since the revenge part is not properly completed. Not recommended.