NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS (aka DON’T RIDE ON LATE NIGHT TRAINS, LAST STOP ON THE NIGHT TRAIN, TORTURE TRAIN, XMAS MASSACRE, THE NEW HOUSE ON THE LEFT, 1975)

Streaming on Tubi!
Directed by Aldo Lado
Written by Roberto Infascelli, Renato Izzo, Aldo Lado, Ettore Sanzò
Starring Irene Miracle, Laura D’Angelo, Flavio Bucci, Gianfranco De Grassi, Macha Meril, Enrico Maria Salerno and Marina Berti

If only Samuel L. Jackson were a superstar in the mid-1970’s he could have starred in this and we could have called it RAPES ON A TRAIN!!!

I said, RAPES…ON A TRAIN!

Is this thing on?

No?

OK, far be it from me to joke about the subject of rape but someone has to bring a little levity to this dour little number. Directed by Aldo Lado, NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS is basically LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT on a train as a pair of rebellious miscreants sneak onto a train and terrorize some of the passengers. Soon, the two creeps trap a pair of young ladies in a sleeping car and rape and threaten them for most of the night. As happens in these things, the killers cross paths with the parents of these girls and are the targets of their vicious vengeance once their crime is revealed. Maybe it’s not the most original concept, but it is a pretty brutal and twisted little story.

The film starts innocently enough, as our two soon to be victims flit around Europe at Christmas time talking about taking a train to Rome. At the same time, we see the two freaks (one of which looks a lot like David Hess’ Krug and the other looking like Flea from Red Hot Chili Peppers) causing chaos by breaking laws, stealing things, and beating up folks. It’s obvious that these two will be crossing paths and the filmmakers take their sweet time bringing them together. Unlike Wes Craven’s LAST HOUSE, Lado chooses to be pretty obvious about having his parents blatantly stating at a cocktail party that they will not resort to violence on another human being. Sure enough, forty minutes later, pops is skewering one of the killers with a coat rack and blows the other away with a shotgun.

Those rushing to pan this film, though, for being a rip-off of LAST HOUSE OF THE LEFT should know that LHOTL was actually inspired by a Swedish film called THE VIRGIN SPRING. NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS is absolutely vicious during the rape scenes, maybe even more horrible to watch than the original LAST HOUSE. The fact that the crime happens in the claustrophobic cabin of a train instead of the expansive forest in LAST HOUSE even makes the scene all the harder to take. Lado goes to sick depths with NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS only hinted at in LAST HOUSE, especially with the uncaring way the rapists dispose of the dead body of one of the girls by tossing her from the train window.

NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS is not a fun film to sit through, but it does illustrate the horror of rape (and some might say, emulate since much of the film is spent on the hellish ordeal of the girls trapped in a traincar with rapists while the retribution only last for about five minutes before the end credits). Not for the squeamish or light of heart, but why the hell are those folks reading this column anyway? NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS is a rip-off, but still a horrifying film.

Check out the trailer here!!