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.

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.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

A group of young American athletes head to Germany to compete in a grappling competition, with mixed success. However, a mix up at the railway station compromises their trip home, leaving them stranded...until a mysterious woman offers them all a trip back on her luxury carriage. They are struck by the hospitality...only to find as the journey progresses, they are on a train of psychopaths who want their organs and will stop at nothing to get them.

Train probably forwent it's right to a cinema release on these shores for appearing so generic and predictable. Take a typical bunch of obnoxious American teens (the only one I could make out of any of them being Thora Birch) place them in a plot eerily similar to Hostel and then, add the even more common denominator today of being a typical 'torture porn' flick where the emphasis is far more on blood and gore than genuine scares. And indeed, the film never achieves anything resembling a claustrophobic air of tension or terror, just a stumbling stutter from one clunky set up to the next. Not surprising, given the plot line is so far fetched and implausible from the off set. Nonetheless, it could have managed as a genuinely creepy and atmospheric film...but by selling out and being just another of the many bottom of the barrel 'torture porn' flicks that you could forget about as easy as that. **

TRAIN is a one-note film with a one-note idea: somebody, somewhere said "let's make HOSTEL and set it on a train". The project was greenlight, and this movie was born, a vehicle for former Hollywood starlet Thora Birch produced by her former porn star father, Jack.

And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be pretty rubbish. This is low budget, xenophobic nonsense throughout, shot in Eastern Europe and happily ripping off HOSTEL left, right, and centre. The story goes that a group of American gymnastics students are stranded abroad and suckered into boarding a decidedly dodgy train, where the usual shenanigans arise. This is a torture porn film and nothing else, so whether you enjoy it or not depends on how much you like seeing people getting bits snipped off them at frequent intervals.

The film boasts poor acting, one note characterisation, and bad direction. Thora Birch is just about adequate as the heroine, but the rest of the cast aren't up to much - apart from Gideon Emery perhaps, as the only distinctive one of the group (he's playing a gay, dope-smoking elder who hooks up with the rest). The villainous motivations are ludicrous, and the film really drags despite the plentiful action and many death sequences. I was also surprised at the sheer number of plot holes and goofs along the way, which indicates it was probably written and rushed out in a hurry to cash in on the success of the (thankfully) short-lived "torture porn" genre. In any case, it's a dog of a film.