''Night Train to Terror'' is a 1985 American anthology horror film written by

Philip Yordan Philip Yordan (April 1, 1914 – March 24, 2003) was an American screenwriter of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s who produced several films. He acted as a front for blacklisted writers although his use of surrogate screenwriters predates the McCar ...

and directed by Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, with segments directed by John Carr, Phillip Marshak, Tom McGowan, and

Gregg C. Tallas Gregg G. Tallas ( el, Γκρέκ Τάλλας, born Γρηγόρης Θαλασσινός, ''Grigoris Thalassinos''; January 25, 1909, Athens, Greece – February 1, 1993, Athens) was a film director and film editor. He first worked for Fritz Lang ...

. The film features three separate stories, presented through a

frame narrative A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (con ...

in which

God In monotheistic thought, God is usually viewed as the supreme being, creator, and principal object of faith. Swinburne, R.G. "God" in Honderich, Ted. (ed)''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'', Oxford University Press, 1995. God is typically ...

and Satan view and debate the fates of the characters contained within them. The three interior segments that comprise ''Night Train to Terror'' were shot years prior and originally intended as standalone features, but went either unreleased or

unfinished Unfinished may refer to: *Unfinished creative work, a work which a creator either chose not to finish or was prevented from finishing. Music * Symphony No. 8 (Schubert) "Unfinished" * ''Unfinished'' (album), 2011 album by American singer Jor ...

. Since its release the film has become a

cult classic A cult following refers to a group of fans who are highly dedicated to some person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some medium. The lattermost is often called a cult classic. ...

Plot

and Satan are on a train headed to

Las Vegas Las Vegas (; Spanish for "The Meadows"), often known simply as Vegas, is the 25th-most populous city in the United States, the most populous city in the state of Nevada, and the county seat of Clark County. The city anchors the Las Vegas ...

, disputing what they each offer to humankind. Also aboard the train is a group of young people having a party. God and Satan discuss the fate of three individuals as they watch their stories unfold. In the first story, "The Case of Harry Billings", salesmen Harry Billings is an alcoholic and

hedonist Hedonism refers to a family of theories, all of which have in common that pleasure plays a central role in them. ''Psychological'' or ''motivational hedonism'' claims that human behavior is determined by desires to increase pleasure and to decre ...

who accidentally kills his wife while driving recklessly. He is taken to a mysterious

psychiatric hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...

where is placed under

hypnosis Hypnosis is a human condition involving focused attention (the selective attention/selective inattention hypothesis, SASI), reduced peripheral awareness, and an enhanced capacity to respond to suggestion.In 2015, the American Psychologica ...

by a Dr. Fargo and Dr. Brewer. A young couple stop there to use the phone after becoming lost, and are kidnapped and murdered by Otto, an orderly. Meanwhile, the staff use a hypnotized Harry to lure various people to the hospital, including a bartender and a young woman, only to be brutally murdered. The victims' corpses are then used for

organ harvesting Organ procurement (also called organ harvesting) is a surgical procedure that removes organs or tissues for reuse, typically for organ transplantation. Procedures If the organ donor is human, most countries require that the donor be legally de ...

. Dr. Fargo turns on Brewer, spiking his drink with a sedative. Dr. Fargo lobotomizes Brewer, leaving her in sole control of Harry, with whom she has become romantically involved. Harry defies Fargo and kills Otto while attempting to escape. Meanwhile, a lobotomized Brewer enacts revenge by performing vivisection on Fargo. The second story, "The Case of Gretta Connors", follows the young Gretta, a struggling aspiring actress working at an amusement park, who meets and falls in love with the austere middle-aged George Youngmeyer. George exploits Gretta by forcing her into pornographic films. Glenn Marshall, a medical school student, becomes enamored of Gretta after seeing one of her films, and tracks her to a Manhattan bar owned by George, where she performs as a pianist. The two fall in love, and a jealous George enacts a revenge plot by recruiting the two into a

death cult The Cult are an English rock band formed in 1983 in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Before settling on their current name in January 1984, the band performed under the name Death Cult, which was an evolution of the name of lead singer Ian Astbury's ...

of which he is a member. The cult subjects Glenn to various Russian roulette-style death games. When Gretta and Glenn are to be married, George kidnaps them and subjects them to another death game using a

wrecking ball A wrecking ball is a heavy steel ball, usually hung from a crane, that is used for demolishing large buildings. It was most commonly in use during the 1950s and 1960s. Several wrecking companies claim to have invented the wrecking ball. An e ...

, but the game ends in one of the cultists dying instead. In the third story, "The Case of Claire Hansen", Claire is a devout

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

surgeon plagued by nightmares about

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in N ...

. Meanwhile, police Lieutenant Stern attempts to help the elderly Abraham Weiss track down a group of Nazis who murdered his family during the

Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

, and whom Weiss believes fled to the United States during World War II, where they assumed new identities. Stern is skeptical of Weiss's claims, as the individuals Weiss identifies do not appear to have aged since 1944. Weiss takes it upon himself to enact revenge by tracking the group to a large mansion, but is killed after encountering a demonic-looking woman. Claire later performs Weiss's autopsy, and finds a mysterious "666" tattoo on his abdomen, indicating the

mark of the beast The number of the beast ( grc-koi, Ἀριθμὸς τοῦ θηρίου, ) is associated with the Beast of Revelation in chapter 13, verse 18 of the Book of Revelation. In most manuscripts of the New Testament and in English translations of t ...

. Claire's atheist scientist husband is met by Papini, a man branded with this tattoo, but her husband dismisses him. Papini attempts to stop the Nazi group—who are in fact a cult of demonic apprentices to

the Devil Satan,, ; grc, ὁ σατανᾶς or , ; ar, شيطانالخَنَّاس , also known as the Devil, and sometimes also called Lucifer in Christianity, is an entity in the Abrahamic religions that seduces humans into sin or falsehood ...

—but is captured by a monstrous creature and dragged into the earth. The cult begins preying on Claire's husband, luring him to an island to meet with their leader, Olivier. He is killed when he refuses to accept Satan as his master. Later, Claire accidentally hits Olivier with her car near the cult's mansion. At the hospital, she performs a surgery on him, during which her assistant is compelled to kill him, and stabs him on the operating table. Realizing Olivier is a servant of the Devil, the women begin to remove his organs as he flies into a violent rage. Olivier remanifests in the operating room, his body restored, and Claire observes that the vivisected body on the table is now that of her assistant, dead. Claire screams in horror as a coiffed Olivier walks out of the hospital. On the train, God and Satan vie for control of the fate of its passengers; Satan plans to crash the train and send all its unwitting passengers' souls to hell. Satan causes the train to derail, apparently killing everyone aboard, but God intervenes and, instead, the train is seen ascending a track into the sky.

Cast

"The Night Train" * Gabriel Whitehouse as Conductor * Tony Giorgio as Satan *

Ferdy Mayne Ferdy Mayne (or Ferdie Mayne) (born Ferdinand Philip Mayer-Horckel; 11 March 1916 – 30 January 1998) was a German-British stage and screen actor. Born in Mainz, he emigrated to the United Kingdom in the early 1930s to escape the Nazi regi ...

"The Case of Harry Billings" *

John Phillip Law John Phillip Law (September 7, 1937 – May 13, 2008) was an American film actor. Following a breakthrough role as a Russian sailor in ''The Russians Are Coming, the Russians Are Coming'' (1966), Law became best known for his roles as gu ...

as Harry Billings *

Richard Moll Charles Richard Moll (born January 13, 1943) is an American actor. He played the role of Aristotle Nostradamus "Bull" Shannon, a bailiff on the NBC sitcom '' Night Court'' from 1984 to 1992. He has also done extensive work as a voice actor, typica ...

as James Hansen / Otto, an orderly * Eva Hesse as Harry's Wife * Sharon Ratcliff as Dr. Fargo * Arthur M. Braham as Dr. Brewer * Lisa Watkins as Verna "The Case of Gretta Connors" * J. Martin Sellers as George Youngmeyer * Merideth Haze as Gretta Connors * Rick Barnes as Glenn Marshall * Mark Ridley as Prince Flubutu * William Charles as Federico Schmidt "The Case of Claire Hansen" * Cameron Mitchell as Lieutenant Stern * Marc Lawrence as Dieter / Mr. Weiss * Faith Clift as Claire Hansen * Robert Bristol as Olivier * Maurice Grandmaison as Papini

Production

''Night Train to Terror'' was created using the salvaged footage of three other unreleased horror films that had been shot years prior. The first story, "The Case of Henry Billings", features footage from the

unfinished film An unfinished creative work is a painting, novel, musical composition, or other creative work, that has not been brought to a completed state. Its creator may have chosen not to finish it, or may have been prevented from doing so by circumstances ...

''Scream Your Head Off'' (1981), directed by John Carr. The second segment, "The Case of Gretta Connors", was originally a feature film titled ''Death Wish Club'' (1983), which had the working titles ''The Dark Side of Love'', ''Carnival of Fools'', and ''Gretta''. The third story, "The Case of Claire Hansen", originated from the unreleased film ''Cataclysm'' (1980) directed by Phillip Marshak, Tom McGowan, and

, which had the alternate

working title A working title, which may be abbreviated and styled in trade publications after a putative title as (wt), also called a production title or a tentative title, is the temporary title of a product or project used during its development, usually ...

s ''The Nightmare Never Ends'' and ''Satan's Supper''. Parts of the film were shot in

Salt Lake City, Utah Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the Capital (political), capital and List of cities and towns in Utah, most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the county seat, seat of Salt Lake County, Utah, Sal ...

as well as

La Jolla La Jolla ( , ) is a hilly, seaside neighborhood within the city of San Diego, California, United States, occupying of curving coastline along the Pacific Ocean. The population reported in the 2010 census was 46,781. La Jolla is surrounded on ...

and

San Diego, California San Diego ( , ; ) is a city on the Pacific Ocean coast of Southern California located immediately adjacent to the Mexico–United States border. With a 2020 population of 1,386,932, it is the eighth most populous city in the United Stat ...

. In the end credits, Satan is credited as being played by "Lu Sifer" and God by "Himself".

Release

The film was given a limited release theatrically by Visto International in 1985, opening regionally in

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...

on January 25, 1985.

Critical response

In his book ''Bonkers Ass Cinema'' (2022), Matt Rotman writes: "Clever, clunky, and wildly bonkers, the failed experiment of ''Night Train to Terror'' is an exhilarating experience. Scenes transition nonsensically. Actors mysteriously change hair lengths. Claymation monsters on the level of '' Winterbeast'' (1992) wreak havoc on clay-ified characters. nda new wave band sings and dances in a train car, playing the same song over and over for an hour and a half."

Home media

The film was first released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

in October 2014 by

Vinegar Syndrome Cellulose acetate film, or safety film, is used in photography as a base material for photographic emulsions. It was introduced in the early 20th century by film manufacturers and intended as a safe film base replacement for unstable and highly ...

. Extras for the film include the full-length version of ''Greta'' (aka ''Death Wish Club''), an interview with producer/director Jay Schlossberg-Cohen, an interview with assistant editor Wayne Schmidt, and a commentary track by J. A. Kerswell.

Legacy

Since its release ''Night Train to Terror'' has become an infamous

of grade-

Z movie Z movies (or grade-Z movies) are low-budget films with production qualities lower than B movies. History and terminology The term "Z movie" arose in the mid-1960s as an informal description of certain unequivocally non-A films. It was soon adop ...

fare. The film is often compared to '' Plan 9 from Outer Space'' due to its bad dialogue, poor editing, and numerous

continuity errors In fiction, continuity is a consistency of the characteristics of people, plot, objects, and places seen by the reader or viewer over some period of time. It is relevant to several media. Continuity is particularly a concern in the production of ...

Notes

References

Sources

* * * * *

External links

* * * * {{rotten-tomatoes 1985 horror films 1985 films American ghost films American horror anthology films American supernatural horror films The Devil in film Films about cults Films about God Films about Nazism Films set in the Las Vegas Valley Films set in New York City Films set in psychiatric hospitals Films set on trains Films shot in Salt Lake City Films shot in San Diego Films directed by Gregg G. Tallas Organ trade in fiction Rail transport films 1980s English-language films 1980s American films