NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS (1975)

Directed by Aldo Lado
Written by Roberto Infascelli and Renato Izzo
Starring Irene Miracle, Laura D’Angelo, Flavio Bucci and Macha Méril

Two school girls, Lisa (Laura D’Angelo) and Margaret (Irene Miracle) are taking the train from their school in Germany to Lisa’s parents’ house in Italy. A couple of thugs are also on the train after jumping on it while running from the police. We meet these thugs during the opening credits doing some bad things to Santa Clause. Halfway through the trip the train is stopped and searched for a bomb, so Lisa and Margaret decide to catch another train to their destination. Unfortunately for them the two bad dudes plus their new horny woman friend they made on the train decide to switch trains as well. The three baddies corner the two girls in their cabin and spend the rest of the night raping and torturing them. After one girl is killed and the other commits suicide the three get off the train at the next stop where they get a ride from a couple to their house. Unfortunately for these bad guys they got the ride from the wrong people, who just so happen to be the parents of Lisa. Eventually they piece things together and realize that their daughter and friend were killed by these people and so the take their revenge on them.

If any of you have ever seen LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT then you should be familiar with the basic plot of NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS. In fact it was even released in the U.S. as THE NEW LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, well that and a ton of other names.. It’s been several years since I’ve seen Wes Craven’s movie so it is hard for me to point out a lot of similarities right now.

This movie starts off rather slowly with not much happening for the first 30 minutes or so. It does start off with a “unique” opening ballad through the opening credits though which I’m sure will make most people turn the movie off right away. But not I! I kinda like it and it’s cheesy 70’s Italian goodness. We also get a decent score from the master Ennio Morricone. Nowhere near his best work but it works well enough for the film.

Aldo Lado does a good job of directing this one I thought. If you’re fans of giallo films then you’d be familiar with his name and the two nicely made films that he made in the genre. It’s really to bad that he didn’t do to many more like these. It was an interesting choice to shoot the raping and torturing of Lisa and Margaret in eerie blue lighting and being cut with scenes of Lisa’s parents having a Christmas dinner with friends.

The acting is about as good as you can expect from this kind of film. Most of the main cast should look familiar to fans of Eurocult cinema. Irene Miracle does a good job on her first film and is pretty cute, to bad she hasn’t done to many other notable films. A funny and interesting note (to me anyways) is that she was born in Oklahoma!!

Anyways, I thought NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS was a decent little film. In fact I think I might even like it just as much, if not more than LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. It was interesting reading that this was a Video Nasty when there really wasn’t anything graphic going on. The sex and violence are pretty tame, especially by today’s standards. Although I liked it I wouldn’t recommend this to everyone, just the people that like films like LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT or fans of Eurocult cinema.

6.5/10