Film Review: The Texas Railway Killer
An 80-Minute Derailment of Cinematic Potential
Every once in a while, a film comes along that is so fundamentally baffling in its execution that it leaves you questioning not only the choices of its creators, but your own decision to press "play." The Texas Railway Killer is that film. Clocking in at a mercifully short 80 minutes, this low-budget thriller squanders every second of its runtime with a disjointed storyline, wooden acting, and a central premise so absurd that it's hard to determine whether the filmmakers were aiming for horror, satire, or a particularly bleak episode of Thomas the Tank Engine.
Let's start with the acting. Or rather, the complete absence of it. The performances range from high school drama club to "my cousin has a camera, let's make a movie." Characters deliver lines with the emotional intensity of a DMV announcement, and their interactions feel like awkward first takes that somehow made it into the final cut. It's hard to invest in a story when every scene feels like a rehearsal gone wrong.
The film follows (or tries to follow) a character known ominously in the title as "The Texas Railway Killer," though his motives, backstory, and actions remain confusingly vague throughout. The most bewildering choice of all? The killer is mute and, we're told through a bizarre line of dialogue, "allergic to trains." This contradiction alone is enough to throw the whole narrative off the rails. How can a film about a railway killer center on someone who can't speak and has an aversion-nay, an allergy-to the very mode of transport supposedly tied to his homicidal identity? It's as if the writers hatched a premise and immediately forgot what it was supposed to be about.
Budget constraints are apparent from the first frame. To say the film had a $10 budget feels generous, and unfortunately, that meager sum was clearly not spent on anything useful like sound quality, lighting, or coherent editing. Scenes transition with jarring cuts, and the camera work is so shaky and poorly framed it might cause motion sickness. At one point, an important "train scene" appears to be filmed using stock footage, intercut with someone running through a field in what looks like a Halloween costume. It's unclear if this was a stylistic choice or simply desperation.
The soundtrack, if you can call it that, includes eerie silence, random clangs, and what might be the sound of someone flipping through an old Casio keyboard's demo tracks. This only heightens the sense that the movie was assembled with whatever scraps could be found rather than with any kind of artistic intention.
Worst of all, the film is just boring. It drags itself from scene to scene without any suspense, buildup, or payoff. There's no psychological depth, no character arcs, and no catharsis-just an endless trudge of plotless encounters and pointless close-ups. Even the murders, the supposed hook of the film, are so poorly staged and lacking in tension that they barely register.
By the end, the viewer is left not with a sense of dread or reflection, but with regret-regret for not heeding the instinct to stop watching 15 minutes in. The only thing The Texas Railway Killer successfully kills is your time. You would truly be better off lying in a field watching clouds drift by, because at least clouds offer some shape, movement, and the occasional surprise-none of which can be said for this film.
In summary, The Texas Railway Killer is a masterclass in missed opportunities and confused execution. It wants to be chilling but is laughable, mysterious but nonsensical. Save yourself the 80 minutes. Trust me-clouds are more compelling....
