Customer Reviews

Train

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(10)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

This is not the intelligent horror movie the director wants you to think it is. There isn't a single scarey moment in it. It is gross and it is intense. It is also brutally realistic pointless gore with a very lame plot. The actors all do a decent job considering the lame material they have to work with. The Bulgarian actors are especially good.

The story of all this torture being for medical purposes is extremely thin and makes no sense when you think about it. Do people de penile transplants? Do people recover from eye transplants in a matter of hours? Do you really harvest organs with a circular saw in a filthy non-sterile environment? Heck, do you perform any sophisticated medical procedure on a moving train? Don't think so. So, once you come to that conclusion, the story is just idiotic with some great make up. The train can be a great vehicle for a horror movie, but this totally misses the opportunity to be an intelligent, interesting horror movie.

Train (2008) is basically "Hostel" and "Turistas" with slightly less gore. The plot is simple. Some American kids end up on an Eastern European train that is in the business of harvesting American organs while the donor is still alive. The kill scenes were decent and included legs removed while conscious, tongue cut out, multiple organ removal scenes while the victims are screaming, spinal cord cut with pruning shears, and burned alive. If you like torture slasher flicks then you might want to give this one a watch...

Those pesky, eastern-European organ thieves are at it again! This time they're using a TRAIN to lure, drug, and dismember unwary westerners! Thora Birch (THE HOLE, DARK CORNERS) is part of a US wrestling team trapped aboard the locomotive slaughterhouse! Yes, TRAIN is extremely reminiscent of both HOSTEL and TURISTAS, w/ all of the same unnecessary surgery and torturous death. Ms. Birch isn't bad in this otherwise goofy film. I especially liked her transformation into action-hero at the end. Hilarious! The final conflict is a blast!...

I rented this movie under the impression that it was a modern day remake of Terror Train. Instead it is basically Hostel on a train. A wrestling team traveling throughout Russia and eastern Europe miss there train only to find a woman help them onto another train which goes to their destination. Only this train is a traveling organ transplant clinic with some unwilling donors. The movie isn't bad if you like torture horror. It is not as good as Saw or Hostel, but better fare than say Captivity. It just feels like it is late to the party and not very original. If you still love watching Hostel, then by all means you should rent this.

Train takes place when a group of Americans on their way to a Wrestling event miss their original Train and must take THE "TRAIN"! I don't want to give anything away as when I viewed it I had heard nothing so it was a pleasant surprise. I am a huge Horror fan so of course I liked it. It is not great but not bad either. 3-3.5 stars.

Acting: Ok, but hey this is simply a Horror film. Thora Birch was kind of annoying which is a pity as I usually like her.

Gore: Definitely!

Overall this is worth watching and going for a decent price here on Amazon so why not?

"Train" starts out as the usual-A bunch of young Americans in an Eastern Bloc republic-foolishly follow their wrestling coach onto a creepy looking train when the coach is attracted to a frostily attractive woman who has the voice of a man and the heart of a scorpion. On board the train all the personnel are creepy and when two porters who are Russian look-a-likes of the redneck mutants from "Wrong Turn", ask the students for their passports, they hand them over and you know there and then that a certain American wrestling team are about to be body-slammed on scalpels, sledgehammers and grappling hooks. The train is actually a rolling organ harvesting depot for patients who have the dough to purchase organs to be transplanted into them. The "patients" are allowed to view and approve the organ they need. One man with a gleam in his eye admires the penis of one of the wrestlers and in a flash of a scalpel a severed penis is dropped into a alcohol filled bottle. One of the other reviewers has remarked that the movie only shows males being mutilated and butchered but I guess that reviewer missed the scenes of a girl dragged around the train by a grappling hook through her neck and ultimately fed to a dog.

Thora Birch the star plays the second female wrestler and she soon kicks slobbering Russian butt and although she is a bit on the slight side to actually believably kick the butt of the slobbering villians especially one brute who is really slobbering-revenge is sweet and satisfying. I kinda enjoyed the movie, not a great movie but a worthy addition to the torture-porn genre and it does deliver on the gore and goo.

My only complaint is I wish they had shown the penis of the "patient" who was anxiously looking for a new one.

Okay, I'm going to simplify matters here. That way, you (the reader) can skip the rest of this review if it answers your main question straight away. In short, TRAIN is nothing more than a shameless rip off of other Horror films and done much better before. The movie seems like it's not even trying to hide it's obvious intentions as a Horror film. TRAIN takes elements from HOSTEL, SAW, AUTOPSY, THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE and TURISTAS. These moments are so obvious that it almost made me want to stop watching the movie all together. If it wasn't for the great cinematography, terrific gore (for just being rated R) well done music and descent acting, I wouldn't give this film a second thought. The fact that it's a rip off seriously takes it down a few notches in terms of my review.

The plot is simple. Alex is a young College girl (played by Thora Birch from AMERICAN BEAUTY) who is traveling Europe with her fellow class mates from her wrestling team. Personally I find it rather hard to believe that Thora Birch is a wrestler but whatever. It's really not an issue. Anyways, after a bad match, the Coach wants them all to stay in their hotel rooms for the night. Kinda' like a punishment I guess. Also, in the morning they have to get up early for another wrestling match and they can't miss their train.

Needless to say, they all sneak out (not that it matters because they're College kids, they can do whatever they want) and end up going to a European Rave party. Things get a bit dicey at the club (thanks to some jock blow hard) and next thing you know, they're out all night and missed their wake up call for the train. The Coach is pretty ticked off because they lost their last match, missed the second one and made everybody late for their train ride home. While trying to figure out what to do at the station, a mysterious woman offers them a quick ride on some low rent, sleazy train. They all take the offer and scramble aboard. I'm sure some people can see where this is going.

As always, things just aren't what they seem. The train turns out to be an organ transplant, back alley hospital on wheels. Much like the movie HOSTEL (a way better film if you ask me), people pay for others to die. The only difference is the execution and the reason. Another reviewer on here said something about how the plot doesn't make sense, because torturing people before taking their organs and body parts (for transplant) really isn't logical. I would have to agree with that reviewer. It's just an excuse to showcase a bunch of gruesome torture, perpetuating the misconception that good Horror films like SAW and HOSTEL are nothing but "torture porn." If anything, movies like TURISTAS and TRAIN are the true culprits of being "torture porn." Thanks to movies such as this, other better films (HOSTEL for example) will be lumped into that category anyways.

The fact that TRAIN is such a rip off and doesn't make whole lot of sense plot wise, really hinders it in terms of my review. If anything, I might have expected this type of shameless marketing when this new wave of Horror (2001 to about 2007) was hitting it's peak in the mid 2000's. You usually see these type of "copy cats" while the craze is still at it's hottest point. Maybe around the time SAW III and HOSTEL II, I would have expected a clone like this. But it's not. TRAIN was made in 2008 and I didn't see it on the "New Release" shelf until just now, which is 2010! It's a little late in the game if you ask me.

Now, with all that being said, this really could have been a great Horror movie. For one thing, the gore in this film is just fantastic! The movie starts off with some really bloody scenes of a body being skinned while the credits roll. This movie does earn two thumbs up for my fellow Gore Hounds! I can't deny this movie that at the least. Also, the acting is actually pretty good. Nobody is really annoying (outside of some making typical Horror movie mistakes) and I actually found myself rooting for the good guys by the end. Another positive thing about TRAIN is the music score. It's not the best music I've ever heard for a movie but I really thought that it helped set the stage here. I've said it before and I'll say it again, music can really make or break a film.

I was reading online that this movie at one point during production was going to be a remake of TERROR TRAIN. Being the huge Horror movie fan that I am, I could totally see those elements during this film. Sadly, those moments just get lost among the other dozen ripped off themes that TRAIN eventually went for. In my opinion, it would have been much better if this movie was just a remake of TERROR TRAIN. It's a classic in it's own rights, yet it could be remade into a much better Horror movie today. So a remake isn't out of the question in terms of the original. It's just a shame the producers decided to make TRAIN into it's "own" little Horror movie. It turned out being much worse because of everything it rips off in the end.

Over all, if you're looking for a "torture" Horror film that isn't HOSTEL, you could do much worse than TRAIN. However, if you're a fan of Eli Roth and HOSTEL such as myself, then this movie just might tick you off. I'm a pretty devoted Horror fan and I can stomach a lot of lame Horror movies. I usually find something in a film to enjoy, even if it's not all that great. This movie was just bearly holding on in terms of originality. That might be too much for some people to accept. If you're not a picky Horror fan and want to see one with great production, TRAIN is that movie for you. Just expect a total rip off and you won't be disappointed.

I've said my bit.

Over and out.

At first I found this film hard to get into, it seemed cliched and quite frankly I am sick to death of the latest film concept that every economically depressed eastern European town has to have a huge nightclub that stays packed even on tuesday mornings at 3AM. Doesn't anybody have to do farmwork? However, once the story arced in the last third it became very much worth it. Seeing Thora Birch get in touch with her inner Camille Keaton (look it up, you'll thank me later) while at the same time doing most of her own stunts had me on the edge of my seat!! Further evidence that direct-to-video is the new grindhouse. A quality film that has nothing to do with its original concept as a remake of Terror Train.

I was surprised with this one. Hostel meets Turistas on the Midnight Meat Train!

Brutal violence and gore......awesome recipe for fun! This is one of those movies that had me in the state of mind of "I can't wait to see what happens next"! Kept me glued from start to finish and I was very happy! The ending left something to be desired and could of been better but all in all a great great sick flick!

I'm gonna add this to my horror library...definite buy!

Train is a decent torture film, no more, no less. The torture scenes were well done and succeeded in leaving your stomach feel a little squirmy, the acting and special effects used were very well done and the shock value was created using brutal violence rather than loud noises which is always a plus...but the predictability, poor plot build, and ending just killed this one for me. Worth a view.