Evil Train

Forget about the unrelated title "Beyond the Door III", as its better represented under "Death Train" or "Amok Train". What starts off as an optimistically ominous Italian supernatural occult feature eventually falls into cheesy and senseless absurdness, but even so it manages to stay reasonably diverting. The premise's opening build up is atmospheric, spooky and alienating, but when the staged action hit's the train it becomes ludicrously brainless. Forget about making any sense of it (yep it's strange and baffling), and just go along for the unpredictable, but farcical train ride of 'doom'. Director Jeff Kwitny uses the creepy, louring, out-cast East European environment to great effect, and ups the tatty, macabre gore effects when it counted. He plasters it with cheap shocks, but the outrageously graphic deaths are amusingly inventive and impulsive. There are some memorable ones too. An inane script and wishy-washy story is made up of frantic ideas, and novelties that never really seem to come together, but at least it stays in character by keeping the story moving like a speeding train. Some sequences involving the run-away train (that's ritually controlled by Satanists) are balefully destructive, but other times you get a good laugh when the miniature train model comes into play. Adolfo Bartou's sweepingly agile and large scale cinematography is very well-implemented, and at times looked to good for such a production. Telegraphing nearly everything is the pounding, dread-induced music score of generically leering and terrible cues. The performances are pretty wretched, but Bo Svenson's little screen time makes an impression.

Beyond the Door III (1989)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

In 1974 the Italian film CHI SEI? was released in America as BEYOND THE DOOR. The film was one of many rips of THE EXORCIST but it made enough money to where future producers would remember the "new" title. In 1979 Mario Bava made a film called SHOCK but since the title wasn't catchy enough it was renamed BEYOND THE DOOR II even though it had nothing to do with the first film. Then, in 1989, there was AMOK TRAIN, another weak title that couldn't grab people so the producer's decided to call it BEYOND THE DOOR III. So, in a fifteen year period we had three films in the BEYOND THE DOOR series and yet it wasn't ever a real title or series for that matter. You gotta love these Italian name changes (check out DAWN OF THE DEAD and ZOMBI for more).

The "story" has seven American teenagers taking a school trip to Yugoslavia where they will witness a pre-Christian passion play. One of the girls (Mary Kohnert) doesn't want to go because she's actually from this small village but the group ends up there and soon the locals are trying to kill them. It turns out the girl is a virgin so she's prime material to become the wife of Lucifer. The kids end up on a train where they think they're making an escape but it's just leading them to one gruesome death after another. BEYOND THE DOOR III or AMOK TRAIN, whatever you want to call it, has some pretty good stuff going for it but sadly the story is just so bad and pointless that the majority of the running time you're wishing a train would run you over so you could get pass the boredom. Most of the movie takes place on this train and there's not a single thing going on. The kids talk about what's going on. A few new characters enter the picture. The kids talk some more and this just keeps going and going. I'm really confused why they'd build some beautiful sets of the villages and then only shoot there for what ends up being about ten-minutes worth of screen time. This village looks quite good and had a rather nice atmosphere so why they selected to go on the train is anyone's guess. The film runs 94-minutes in its uncut state and the majority of that time is just boring dialogue or we have a couple kids not on the train who walk around not doing a thing. The film actually does have some good things going for it with one being the cinematography by Adolfo Bartoli. There's no question this was an extra low-budget movie but you wouldn't know it just by looking at the film because it looks very professional and that's not hardly the case with these type of films. Another plus are the gore effects, which are quite good looking and since this is an Italian movie we get all sorts of bloody deaths. The first murder involves one of the strangest decapitations I've ever seen and things just get more gory from here including one sequence where a woman peels her face off. The Lucifer creature here is pretty silly looking though. Most of the cast is forgettable but we do get Bo Svenson in a brief role as the Professor. It's too bad a better screenplay wasn't written for this thing and it's a shame most of the time took place on the train because there are enough decent elements here that should have made for a better movie.

Third entry in the series of films that have nothing to do with each other. The original title for this one is Amok Train, though it's better known as Beyond the Door III. It involves a group of college students heading to Yugoslavia. Once there, it is revealed that the virgin of the group, Beverly, is intended to be the bride of the devil.

This is a really bad movie with some truly lousy gore scenes. The deaths themselves are creative enough, but the effects are terrible, several of them using blatantly obvious dummy heads. The characters are also an unlikable bunch who treat Beverly poorly for no good reason. They also never seem to much care when something otherworldly happens. One guy kisses his possessed girlfriend and gets a mouth full of maggots in the process. The girl then proceeds to rip her face off right in front of him, but the guy never mentions it and acts as if it didn't happen. We also get some hilarious scenes of the titular train going off the rails, all done with very bad miniature work.

This one's for those who like to laugh at bad movies. Anyone else should avoid. Funnily enough, it's still the most watchable film in this series of unrelated Euro flicks.

Everyone who gave this movie a bad review is fired from EVER reviewing a b-horror movie again. There are two kinds of horror movies...There are the ones such as THE EXORCIST and HALLOWEEN which, for whatever reason, have mass appeal. And then there're the ones like BEYOND THE DOOR 3, obscure low budget oddities which suddenly appear on video store new release walls with a no-name cast and crew and really nothing to recommend them other than a really neat cover box. They're usually made on a shoestring budget with plots recycled from other movies. But they have only one goal and that is to entertain. And BEYOND THE DOOR 3 certainly succeeds in that area. I've seen this little gem of a flick more than a dozen times and I'm thoroughly entertained each time. To hell with characterizations and plodding plot devices, this little flick wants to entertain and scare you, and it does! When you rent a movie like BEYOND THE DOOR 3 you should have some idea of what's in store for you. Especially since it's a part 3 so you're renting it having probably seen the first two installments. So you shouldn't be disappointed because it's too cheesy or flatly directed, etc. That's what fans of these types of movies want. So shame on everyone who watched this movie and was disappointed. Go watch MATLOCK with Grandma, you sissies.

Amok Train ( a far better title) tells the tale of a group of American students on a study trip in Serbia who are first terrorized by an evil village, and then by a runaway train they they attempt to escape on. It's all because one of the students is a "chosen one" of a group of devil worshippers.

The film has so much going on, it's never boring, even if some of the story and acting are a bit hokey, there are always plenty of things to look at and some outrageous gore is showcased, including a face being pulled off, decapitations, impalements galore, and quite a shocking dismemberment of one poor guy caught between moving carriages.

Actually some of the most frightening scenes of the movie are those depicting the actors being filmed on the moving train. We see them running alongside and jumping aboard, clambering over the top of it, hanging off the sides and dangling between the couplings - all while the train is clearly moving at some speed. I don't know how they filmed all of this, it looks completely hair-raising. If these are faked via special effects, then I take my hat off in admiration.

There are some rather shonky miniature models that spoil some of the tension, but the movie is otherwise beautifully photographed, and the music is great too. It's bursting with energy and great visuals, reminiscent of Lamberto Bava's "Demons" , and the more obscure "Spider Labyrinth", so if you have seen and enjoyed either of those, and can suspend your criticisms, you'll have fun with this.