The Death Train

Do you fancy yourself a glass of carrot juice? Well, that's the hospitality our insurance investigator gets from the quirky and unusual Australian made-for-TV mystery "THE DEATH TRAIN". This mystery angle with supernatural hints and kooky humor is very old-school in its storytelling and this is driven by a captivating Hugh Keays-Byrne performance. Those might know him for his part as "Toecutter" a year later in "MAD MAX".

On this occasion he plays the klutzy straight-man Ted Morrow caught up in a peculiar mystery amongst a country town that lives it as normality. This would drive any sane person loopy. Each time he goes looking for answers the ghost train keeps popping out of their mouths. But he believes there's something much more shady at work. As he intends to uncover the truth of how his company's client was hit by a train in a place where there wasn't any tracks. But in doing so himself he slowly starts acting unorthodox in his attempts figure it out.

How things do pan out is like a Scooby Doo episode, but even so the supernatural currents are still left ambiguous at the end with a fitting choice of dialogue. The mystery is at times overshadowed by the always amusing irrational character interactions, but it only adds to the fun. Tone-wise it's very lighthearted and care-free, however this compliments the oddball characters and their mannerisms. The local cast featuring the likes of Ken Goodlet, Brian Wenzel, Max Meldrum and Ingrid Mason as the infatuated Hippie love interest do an excellent job bringing their characters to life.

This Australian TV movie is a fun little watch. It is a mystery with supernatural overtones as insurance man Ted Morrow (Hugh Keays-Byrne) shows up to investigate the unusual death of a man who was apparently run over by a train in a place where there are no train tracks. What really makes this movie enjoyable is the lead performance of Keays-Byrne, he of "Toecutter" fame from MAD MAX fame. He plays the character as a bit of an eccentric and really adds a lot to the role. Director Igor Auzins bends the mystery to leave both the logical and supernatural options open at the end of the film. This is wonderful in the sense that you can imagine Morrow as being completely insane with the way he unravels the mystery.

I found a copy of this film on the $2.99 rack of a video store. They were selling it, I guess because no one was renting it anymore. Concidering it was a television movie, I thought it was done very well. The advertisements (for other films) that came before the feature film where aweful, worst I've ever seen. However, the film was alot better. The director, Igor Auzins, makes use of a somewhat cheesy, but stylistic technique in the begining, by zooming out then freeing a single frame with zoom blur for dramatic effect. Other than that I thought the film was done very well. After the cheesy zoom blur effect, the film had an almost dark feeling, but not quite. The main character, Ted Morrow, was done very well. His character development was exactly what you needed/wanted to see. Most television movies look as if they are for television. I was suprised to find out this was a television movie. I would recomend this to anyone, who can not only find a copy of it, but enjoys a good old fashion character developing suspense story that is unlike post-Blair Witch Project suspense/horror films that have no endings and don't have enough story to even be called nonsence.

This movie is absolutely amazing. It takes its' time unwinding an extraordinary plot centering around Ted Morrow (Hugh Keays-Byrne) as he investigates a death of an insurance client in the small town of Clematis. This film is delightful and well-told, the actors and actresses are natural and realistic. This would be an ideal film to sit down and watch alone, watch with friends, or even your kiddos, especially since it has absolutely zero violence or depravity. I really adore this film.