TRAIN

The real “Horror Express”

In Eastern Europe, members of a USA college wrestling team board a dubious train to Odessa, Ukraine. Unfortunately some of the staff has something in mind other than a train ride. Thora Birch and Gideon Emery stand out in the cast.

“Train” (2008) combines “Hostel” (2005) or “Borderland” (2007) with “Transiberian” (2008) plus the Frankenstein-ian element of “Turistas” (2006) and “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” (2008). It’s basically “Transiberian” with the so-called ‘torture porn’ angle (‘torture porn’ being slasher/splatter flicks taken to the next level of extreme).

Movies always amp-up reality to entertain or shock and "Train" takes advantage of the fear of being a foreigner in an Eastern Europe country, like Russia or Ukraine, and falling prey to sinister people named Boris, Ivan or Natasha. This should no more be offensive to people from Eastern Europe than "Deliverance" (1972) is offensive to people of the Deep South.

To be expected in this type of movie, there are some unpleasant and even nasty elements, but that's intrinsic to the horror genre, and particularly this sub-genre: True horror flicks are supposed to horrify the viewer. Beyond that, this is basically a real-life adventure story that turns increasingly terrifying. On that basis, "Train" delivers the goods.

The film runs 1 hour, 34 minutes, and was shot in Sofia, Bulgaria.

GRADE: B