“Is there anything else I can get for you, Mr. Satan?”
Night Train To Terror (1985) was on Mubi for a long time and I always passed it by, until it left Mubi. When I finally wanted to watch it for the spooky movie season, it was only available on Tubi (using the US settings). Now this is a horror anthology movie, which is a sub-genre that I’m a sucker for, but this one is a little bit different. The wrap around storyline is amazing. On a passenger train barrelling through the midnight hour, a new wave rock band takes up one compartment (which looks like a music video set) and energetically performs the song, ‘Everbody But You.’ Good news that it’s a fun tune because you will hear it a lot during the movie; between every self-contained story in this anthology, the film cuts back to the band non-stop partying, playing the same song as if they’re in an eternal music video, choreographed dancing and solo breakdancing, and singing to the camera.
What’s really going on in this train, though, is that another carriage contains God (white suit, kindly old man with white beard) and the Devil (dark suit, seedy guy wearing rings) who are sitting across from each other, and debating the fate of humanity as their passenger window displays a dark sky full of stars. Pretty amazing. Three stories are presented to us as “cases,” examples of human folly for God and Satan to judge whether the protagonist deserves heaven or hell.
When you read up about the movie’s unusual production, you can under the nonsense a bit more. Night Train To Terror is basically stitched together from three other horror movies (including one, Death Wish Club, which I really want to see now). So instead of your basic short movie or episode designed for an anthology movie, here it’s a full movie chopped to bits for a 25 minute version and papered over with God’s narration to orientate the viewer somewhat. Yet each movie featured seems to have a convoluted story of its own, one that is rushed through and results in a disorientating experience. But who cares as long as you’re just showing the best bits – thrills, spills, kills – and occasionally a recognisable actor might appear (John Phillip Law, Cameron Mitchell, Richard Moll twice). Nudity, sex, violence, gore effects and even claymation stop-motion creature effects (apparently added in later by the Night Train To Terror director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen). A delightful grab bag of treats smashed together and wrapped by with one catchy New Wave song and God debating Satan until the morning light.
I had a lot of fun. Recommended for Halloween.
VHS Tracking 