the audience applauded

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

Strange, outlandish mix of horror and comedy feature heavy in this very forgotten 90s midnight b-grade genre film starring David Naughton ("American Werewolf in London"), Jeff Conaway and Kevin McCarthy. Familiar ideas are presented in this supernatural piece, but a unique choice of setting by using a rail car as its haunted house get-up gives it a bit of character, atmosphere and creativity. Too bad the story, while having some bite doesn't play out the same suit. The visual effects are competent and gruesomely twisted with some cheesy deaths. Even the demonic ghost mister is a vivid creation. Director Douglas Curtis keeps an up-tempo style and this allows him to keep the story moving then focusing on its limited scope. But what I found hurt it, was the humour and delivery of it. The dark tone had its moments, but the lame dialogue could have been toned down. It just felt forced and artificial with a script wanting to make a joke with every nearly every line. It kind of got overbearing, even the knowing performances felt off. Naughton's nervous energy just irritates and the lovely Judie Aronson is witless. While a bug-eyed McCarthy looks at a lost. Conaway simply hams it up, but I definitely found the most amusing. Also making a minor appearance is John Carl Buechler. For most part an enjoyable, if not always funny oddball horror-comedy.

Mostly, "The Sleeping Car" is just another dead-guy-comes-back-to-life story. But it gets helped - if only minimally - by the fact that the cast members probably know that they're in a B-movie and don't take it too seriously to be stupid. David Naughton (happy birthday, David!) sort of plays off of his "American Werewolf in London" role as a man on a train who awakens the ghost of his landlady's husband. From there, most of the movie consists of...well, you know what sorts of things to expect in a horror flick. A slight disappointment for hardcore horror fans is the lesser amount of gore than we usually find in horror movies.But anyway, it's fun in a pinch. Also starring Kevin McCarthy, who pretty much channels his roles in "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and various Joe Dante movies.All in all, we can add this movie to the pantheon of movies with "sleep" in the title: "Sleeping Beauty", "Sleeper", "Sleepaway Camp", "Brother of Sleep" and "Sleepers".

"The Sleeping Car" is a pretty insignificant and worthless horror film that is made endurable by a couple of nice special effects and a neat supporting role by Kevin McCarthy. The plot revolves on an over-aged journalism student Jason (David McNaughton from "American Werewolf in London) who rents an old, refurnished train carriage to live in. This carriage – the sleeping car – is possessed by the spirit of "the Mister", the landlady's late husband who was responsible for a huge train crash ten years earlier. The screenplay doesn't make that much sense, but you can hardly consider that an obstacle in early 90's horror movies. There's some nice murdering and the female lead Judie Aronson is yummy. What's really annoying about the "the Sleeping Car" are the constant witty remarks of protagonist Jason McCree. He uses a supposedly funny one-liner every time his character does or says something. Even in the climax, when he's fighting (?) the demon, he interrupts the action for a lousy remark...Very annoying.

''The Sleeping Car' is by no means a good film. It's slow moving, lacks any atmosphere, and gets rather tedious at times, but it still manages to deliver the goods, or at least some of them. The production values are passable, but far from bad, and the script works to a degree, but for some reason the pieces don't fall into place as they should. The body count is only four, making it too tame to be a slasher movie (though it does hint at that, especially during the overlong climax), but too juvenile to be a psychological thriller/horror film.The acting isn't bad, but it sure isn't all that great. It seems like the actors were booked for three or four days for filming, and just wanted to get it over with, so they didn't seem to put a lot of effort into it. No one in particular stands out, and the characters don't make the movie any more interesting. On top of that, none of the characters are very well developed, with the exception of the professor, so that does little to help the cause.Still the movie does have several things working for it, not the least of which is some pretty impressive special effects for a movie of this caliber. Another is the creative and very gruesome death scenes, which may be the best part of this 'not quite there, but close' horror flick6/10