Too much of everything

Pretty Good

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

This was originally supposed to be a remake of the 1980 Jamie Lee Curtis movie Terror Train, but it later evolved into an original project, it was a film I had seen the DVD cover many times, so I guess I had to see it. Basically in Eastern Europe, a group of American college athletes are competing in a wrestling championship, the team are led by Coach Harris (Todd Jensen), and the students include Todd (Derek Magyar) and his girlfriend Alex (American Beauty's Thora Birch), Sheldon (Kavan Reece), Claire (Gloria Votsis), and young assistant coach Willy (Gideon Emery). Following a hard match they spend the night drinking heavily, this means that the following morning they miss the train to Odessa. A seemingly friendly woman, Dr. Velislava (Koyna Ruseva), shows them another train that they can board, two workers are seen taking all of their passports and burning them. Soon enough the coach and students realise there is something dodgy going on, one by one they disappear on the train, all ending up in a dilapidated room, and severely injured. Dr. Velislava is carrying out a deadly series of operations on the students, cutting them open and tearing them apart whilst still alive to dissect their organs, to be sold and transplanted to patients. After some time of the students being captured and tortured for their organs, and passengers on the train apparently in on the horrible scheme, Alex is the last living survivor of the terror, in the end she is seen escaping the train by uncoupling the carriage, and later returns, having recovered from the events, to fight a wrestling match with grim confidence. Vladimir Vladimirov as Vlad, Valentin Ganev as Conductor Vasyl, Ivan Barnev as Gregor, Nikolay Mutafchiev as Vasily and Miroslav Emilov as Ishtav. Birch is not all that convincing as the emotionally drained heroine who watches all her friends become unwilling organ donors, it probably wouldn't have made any difference if it was set on a train or not, apart from some of the gory moments it is not scary, predictable and uninteresting, thank goodness it got limited release in film festivals and went straight to DVD, a disappointing horror. Adequate!

A group of wrestlers are boarding a mysterious train with their coach, only to find themselves dragged away in the night to have their internal organs harvested while they are still alive. Aside from being morbid and gross, this film didn't have much in it. About halfway through it I fell asleep. Watching pervy teenagers who dare each other to run around on a train naked for fun isn't exactly exciting. There was a lot of disgusting rape stuff that was unnecessary and degrading. The organ harvesting plot was apparently based on truth, but it was highly exaggerated and obviously not based on much of anything other than trying to creep people out for a quick buck or two. Unless you're a gore fan and have seen 'em all, I wouldn't watch this.

TRAIN is a one-note film with a one-note idea: somebody, somewhere said "let's make HOSTEL and set it on a train". The project was greenlight, and this movie was born, a vehicle for former Hollywood starlet Thora Birch produced by her former porn star father, Jack.And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be pretty rubbish. This is low budget, xenophobic nonsense throughout, shot in Eastern Europe and happily ripping off HOSTEL left, right, and centre. The story goes that a group of American gymnastics students are stranded abroad and suckered into boarding a decidedly dodgy train, where the usual shenanigans arise. This is a torture porn film and nothing else, so whether you enjoy it or not depends on how much you like seeing people getting bits snipped off them at frequent intervals.The film boasts poor acting, one note characterisation, and bad direction. Thora Birch is just about adequate as the heroine, but the rest of the cast aren't up to much - apart from Gideon Emery perhaps, as the only distinctive one of the group (he's playing a gay, dope-smoking elder who hooks up with the rest). The villainous motivations are ludicrous, and the film really drags despite the plentiful action and many death sequences. I was also surprised at the sheer number of plot holes and goofs along the way, which indicates it was probably written and rushed out in a hurry to cash in on the success of the (thankfully) short-lived "torture porn" genre. In any case, it's a dog of a film.

A group of Americans (many are wrestlers) travel through Eastern Europe by train. As they become abducted and killed we learn that this is part of an organ harvesting ring. Why torture the victims before hand? Makes little sense. How about that a team of wrestlers aren't able to defend themselves? Makes less sense. What you do get is gory live organ removal, eye removal, broken neck, male necrophilia sodomy (yes you read that right), a girl beaten, impaled under the chin, dragged and then taken by a group of soldiers to be gang raped (and presumably killed), ripped out nipple rings, throat slicing, an axe mercy killing and cast of indifferent to homicidal Europeans hunting some perpetually victimized young people. Some may read this description and find the thought of watching people beaten, dis-em bowled, crushed, raped and murdered to be a great time. I don't want to meet you. This isn't even on par with Hostel which managed at least some dark humor and a cathartic bit of revenge. This is just ugly and hopefully the last gasp of a tired horror subgenre.