Train

When Hostel was released I found it to be an interesting twist on the likes of Texas Chainsaw Massacre or Hills Have Eyes, playing on the fear of being outside one's normal environment, but exchanging the backwoods for Eastern Europe. Even back then, however, I noted the American-centricity of the film.

Since then we have had Hostel II, Turistas (known as Paradise Lost here in the UK), and now we have Train- another in this unfortunate sub genre that shouldn't be called Torture Porn, but rather "Don't be Leavin' America!" Because yet again those poor beautiful Abercrombie And Fitch mannequins are under threat by Eastern Euopeans who want to take their organs.

A film I recently enjoyed was Saw VI. Yes- seriously. The sixth part in a series of horror films and it still felt fresher than this film. Why? Probably because it quite cleverly, highlighted the brutality inherent in the medical insurance system of care in the US, and selfishness of banks practically handing out risky loans that has led us to this economic crisis. This was a horror film brave enough to assess America's own problems.

In contrast films such as Train are contemptuous of all things non- American. It makes me wonder about the the directors of these movies- did they take their middle-American rite-of-passage trip to Europe as students- backpack around? At what point did they decide to cinematically urinate on the countries they visited? The film itself is bland, feels cheap and thinks revealing a character's pierced nipples counts as character development. Thora Birch looks annoyed at having signed on- I'm pretty sure there are moments her face screams "I was once in American Beauty." And let's be grateful this film was about Eastern Europeans stealing organs, because if it was about bottling charisma or likability, no one would have died.

If you like movies like Hostel, Turistas, and Green Inferno, then Train will be a guilty pleasure too. The characters are not fully developed, Thora Birch's (the only actor you will most likely recognize) and the remaining actors' acting is horrendous, and the gore seems over the top, but let's be honest here; we're not expecting to see the next Oscar contender when we watch this film. This movie has the makings for a half decent horror film. - detestable villains, - gore, - characters that you don't care if they live or die and characters that you get attached to (that would be Willy for me), not-needed-to-advance-the-plot nudity, - and a lot of "shhh, be quiet" and "don't go over there" moments to the predictable jump scares. If you don't come into the watching this film with any expectations, and you'll have a good time watching this film if you are a horror fan.

Americans go on a train in Europe that ends up being their last ride.

That's this film summed up in one sentence, one boring sentence that actually is more entertaining than the film. This is Hostel meets Turistas on a train. How many times have we seen good-looking Americans (ugly ones never travel) that somehow get caught up in some sick plot about killing for for money, organ harvesting, teaching lessons, etc. These films seem like ANTI-TRAVEL ads, if you leave the states, you're going to die.

The film doesn't bother with a plot, it simply needs to get characters for the slaughter in specific locations so bad guys can do harmful things to them. Films like these are basically an excuse to showcase gore, just like a film such as 2012 is made to showcase special effects. So how do you judge a film that is simply about cutting people up? You judge it on how well they accomplish that, how creative it can be and if it made you squirm. Does Train do any of these things?

Well, characters are beaten, urinated on, cut open, stabbed, castrated, etc. So there is no real creativity going on here. People are simply chained up and then cut open for the most part. Train manages to fall into the horror clichés that have plagued the genre like a sickness. Let's take a look:

1. Characters have a chance to escape, but don't? Check. 2. Characters have a weapon, drop it and leave it instead of using it? Check. 3. Characters give away passports/I.D. to strangers in other country just because? Check. 4. Characters go back to save someone who cannot be saved? Check. 5. Characters have opportunity to kill attacker, but instead choose to simply injure then run away? CHECK.

This film had me rolling my eyes so much I hurt my eyeballs.

Train is a flick you can miss, it adds nothing to the genre in terms of suspense, thrills, gore, entertainment, anything. It will anger you, frustrate you, cause you to rip your hair out. All these things and more!!!!

I probably should have known this was going to be, or at least akin to being, "torture porn", or the gratuitous slicing and dicing of people without any of the suspense, but I didn't expect this low-rent movie starring Thora Birch to be just so unpleasant, in its style and mood and its delivery. It doesn't help that the cast mostly looks like the understudies of other actors (that one guy is a dead ringer for Denis Leary, another one for European Cameron Diaz) and none of them can act very well (Birch, of course, being a master thespian of under-acting if that's possible). But any moment that a suspenseful walking/creeping around should work it doesn't, and any moment that we're supposed to be icked or frightened by the next gashing-out of blood is just stupid in its excessiveness.

It also doesn't help at all that the logic is twisted; there's a train that kidnaps unwitting people into using their bodies on the black market, okay, I'll bite, maybe it's like Taken on a Train (ho-ho). Even then there's little thought put into it; they're organ-removers basically- a little like the people in Hostel only providing a "service" albeit extremely criminal and psychopathic and with some of the usual big galuts in tandem. But what about what's usually done with organ removing and transplanting like, I don't know, a CLEAN ROOM! It's one thing to be evil East-Euro organ removers, it's another thing to be incompetent while doing it.

Also, the ending is one of the lamest in modern cinematic memory, even if it's straight-to-video. There's little to recommend about it except for a few (unintentional) laughs early on before the Olympic team gets on the train and parties down at an overly-red-lit nightclub.

Not exactly sure what I was expecting with this one. I figured, hey, Thora Birch is in this, it can't be ALL bad. A bunch of American kids traveling around in a train getting terrorized in some fashion... sounds watchable. Unfortunately, I was not satisfied.

If my comment title hasn't tipped you off yet, you're in for an hour and a half of equal parts torture porn and survival horror. There's nothing new here and no worth while twists to raise this movie above (or even up to the level of) many similar genre pictures. It seems to meas if all the horror directors have tired of setting their pictures in the rural south, invariably populated with crazed backwoods cannibals and have instead focused on semi-fictional demonic visions of Eastern Europe populated by depraved butchers for hire. The acting is flat and the characters are so unlikeable (not to mention the lack of definition or development) you just can't muster any emotional ties. You won't even find yourself rooting for the bad guy here... you just won't care.

There is one facet of the movie that does seem to shine though. Love it or hate it, the gore in this film is so over the top and just down right rotten and visceral that it will produce a response. The camera does not flinch away... ever. I guess we're all just too complacent as horror fans these days. Gore like this used to be able to carry a film on the merits of the blood spilled alone, as the super bloody extreme cinema was relatively rare, often found only in hard core Asian productions. Now, every movie you watch seems to be teeming with so much of it that we as fans are beginning to demand more than just a slasher guts fest.

There are so many cool horror movies out there that invest their time and effort in delivering more in terms of originality. Unless you're curious, I would seek out something with more depth.