Witchfinder General 666 Director Aldo Lado is doubtlessly best known for his beautiful and eerie Gialli "La Corta Notte Delle Bambole Di Vetro" ("Short Night of the Glass Dolls" / "Malastrana", 1971) and "Chi L'ha Vista Morire?" ("Who Saw Her Die?" / "The Child", 1972). And rightly so, as "L'Ultimo Treno Della Notte" ("The Night Train Murders", 1975) isn't nearly as good nor as elegant as the man's Gialli. A blatant rip-off of Wes Craven's Exploitation classic "The Last House on the Left" of 1972 (which itself is a remake of Ingmar Bergmann's 1960 film "The Virgin Spring"), "The Night Train Murders" bears no surprises, and only few elements that make it worthwhile, other than a score by Ennio Morricone. "The Last House on the Left" spawned a variety of (mostly Italian) rip-offs in the following years, including Ruggero Deodato's ultra-nasty "House on the Edge of the Park" (1980), and one must sadly say that this is one of the less interesting ones. Personally, I have never been the biggest fan of Craven's film, but it is doubtlessly a milestone that was disturbing, genuinely shocking and unforgettable once one has seen it. This film has no originality, and while it has the potential to shock and disturb, it only does so in a depressing manner.***Warning! BIG SPOILERS!!!*** Lado simply takes the story of Craven's film and transfers it into a train. Laura (Martina Berti) and Margaret (Irene Miracle) are going by train from Munich to Verona in order to spend the Christmas holiday with Laura's family. Two lowlife scumbags and a perverted bitch (played by Macha Méril, who is best known for her role in Argento's "Profondo Rosso" from the same year) begin to harass the two girls, later rape them. Later they accidentally kill one of the girls in a sadistic game, the other girl throws herself out of the window of the running train and dies. As it happens, fate then leads the three scumbags to the house of Laura's parents, and her dad is eager to take bloody revenge for his little girl...No surprises here, just an exact copy of the plot of "The Last House on the Left", only that it isn't as effective and the ending is very lame. At least in Craven's film we saw all the scumbags wiped out by the parents, whereas in this film, the crazed female culprit, probably the worst of the pack, is still breathing by the film's end. Now that's what I call depressing: Having to see the poor girls tormented and killed first, and then not even having the opportunity to see all those responsible die agonizing deaths - this kinda makes you feel cheated as a viewer."The Night Train Murders" is very sadistic, but actually pretty tame in its actual depiction of gore and sleaze compared to other films of the kind. Even though i obviously didn't like this film, I have to say that it does have some good aspects. The performances are above average for a low-budget exploitation feature, particularly the beautiful Macha Méril, whose face every Italo-Horror fan will recognize from Argento's "Profondo Rosso", is wonderfully diabolical in the role of the perverted bitch she plays. The score by Ennio Morricone is good, of course, and there is one sequence that, even though depressing, goes beyond the plot of "Last House on the Left" and therefore can be applauded for its uncompromising character: The sequence in which a spectator, instead of helping the girls or calling for help happily joins their rapists once invited. Though unpleasant to watch, this scene uncompromisingly visualizes the rotten character of so many 'square' people who are always happy to do evil things, as long as they are not likely to get caught.Still, "The Night Train Murders" is a disappointment in my eyes. The film's utterly depressing character isn't necessarily a flaw, in my opinion. I tend to love depressing, shocking and disturbing Exploitation films. This one just has no originality, and in the end it just leaves a feeling of emptiness, since the revenge part is not properly completed. Not recommended.

tonymurphylee Ingmar Bergman's THE VIRGIN SPRING has been hailed one of the most controversial foreign films of the 60s. Not surprisingly, the 1972 remake of THE VIRGIN SPRING, titled THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT and directed by Wes Craven, is considered one of the most controversial horror films of the 70s. If anyone were to have guessed that the film would have been remade and rehashed so much, perhaps one wouldn't have been so quick to jump on the idea of it being a taboo horror film. In truth, the Wes Craven classic does not hold up well today. It's cheap look, it's inappropriate sense of style of music, and it's pacing come off more strongly as camp.None the less, the film is undeniably influential. It's influence can be seen in everything from family films such as HOME ALONE in which the main characters make a mockery of thugs in a variety of gruesome traps, to Grindhouse style shock films such as I DRINK YOUR BLOOD and CAGED TERROR. It has been remade three times; In 2009 it was fully adapted as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, which garnered mixed critical acclaim. In 2005 it was remade in as a cheap low budget student film by wrestler David DeFalco called CHAOS. However, most importantly it was remade by in 1975, only three years after the original, in an Italian version known as NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS, or, as it was known in the US, THE NEW LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT.NIGHT TRAIN MURDERS follows the same basic set-up as THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT. Two girls are kidnapped by thugs, tortured, raped, and then brutally murdered. The setting this time is in Italy, and the plot follows two girls on a series of train rides to one of their parents's house. The film starts off much like a film about two innocent tourists. The girls get on the train and have a series of little adventures, not entirely innocent, but playfully naive and without much fear. However, as their train rides continue, things don't go as planned. Two thugs sneak on board and begin to harass the girls, as well as another female passenger who soon decides to join them on their night of debauchery and mayhem after one of them rapes her.When the two girls find themselves fearing for their lives and uncomfortable, they take advantage of a somewhat convenient bomb-threat and sneak onboard another train that will get them to their destination about half an hour early. They get on-board only to find that the train is, mostly, deserted and seemingly without lights or electricity. They take a nap in one of the compartments and then wake up later on in the night to have dinner by candlelight. However, during their dinner they soon discover that the thugs, along with their female friend, have sneaked on-board and the two girls find themselves trapped in a horrible nightmare of torture, rape, humiliation, and heartless cruelty.When the deeds are done the terror still continues. Even after the bodies are violated and disposed of there is still such incredible suspense in it's unfolding of events. When the parents show up to pick the girls up and find the two thugs and the girl at the train station instead, we can feel the slowly building paranoia as the characters realize who they are each dealing with. As the parents come to find out what happened, we truly can feel their sorrow as they realize that they will never see their daughter alive again. Then the revenge aspect comes into play and it is even more shocking than we anticipated. It is not shocking in a gratuitous gorefest kind of sense, but rather it is shocking in that it is obvious that the father who performs these killings is unprepared and inexperienced in such matters. The terror comes from the fact that he is a normal man who is doing something he has never wanted to do. As a result the film is not only horrifying as hell, but it is also an emotional roller coaster ride.This is one of the most effective horror films I have ever seen. The realism of the situations presented here comes off so authentic and suspenseful that it's practically a guarantee that most viewers' stomachs will be in knots. The film is relentless in it's horror and the way the victims' lives are toyed with. The audience is toyed with as well in several moments of what I could pretty much describe as false hope. The film will likely take an emotional tole on viewers who aren't prepared. This film is far more disturbing than THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT due to the unfolding tension. There are no moments of forced dark comedy or cheap style. The film pulls no punches in depicting the last hours of the lives of these two innocent girls. The character of Curly is also far more terrifying than the character of Krug in the original in that he comes across as so simple-minded and yet so screwed up in a realistic way. This is an absolute must-see for all horror fans. This film is a masterpiece, and I'm glad that a modern day version of THE VIRGIN SPRING has finally been told in a proper and effective way.

universal_monster Oh yeah baby, another terrible and overrated Italian exploitation film that deserves cult status about as much as "Elmo: The Movie." This one is an almost exact clone of Wes Craven's "Last House on the Left," which itself copied Ingmar Bergman's "The Virgin Spring." So what's to say about a copy of a copy? It turns out, not much. Two young women (one played by Irene Miracle from Argento's "Infero") are heading home for the holidays on a late night train. Two obnoxious punks (one played by Flavio Bucci from Argento's "Suspiria") and an equally sick upper class female (played by Macha Meril of Argento's "Deep Red") harass, humiliate, rape and ultimately murder both. The female goes back to her normal everyday life, while the punks end up at the home of one of the murdered girls. The parents find out what happened and get their revenge. After a painfully boring, terribly written first third, this has a brutal and tasteless middle, and caps it all off with an ineffective "revenge" finale that has absolutely no impact whatever and only succeed at being boring and insignificant. This film completely lacks suspense and really is just a third-rate knock-off of material done far better elsewhere. And what strikes me as funny is the number of people claiming this movie is "subtle." If you consider a girl being stabbed in the vagina and then a camera shot of the knife sticking out of her crotch to be "subtle," then you need to pick up a dictionary and look up what "subtle" means.There are a ton of Dario Argento movie vets are the cast. Other then the three I already mentioned, there's also Gianfranco De Grassi (who appeared in the Argento-produced "The Church"), Enrico Maria Salerno ("Bird With the Crystal Plumage"), Giovanni Di Benedetto ("Four Flies on Grey Velvet" and others) and Dalila Di Lazzaro ("Phenomena").My advice: Skip this trash!

BA_Harrison Aldo Lado's Night Train Murders, an Italian clone of Wes Craven's infamous horror Last House on the Left (1972), is a repugnant and sleazy little shocker which, although it doesn't offer much in the way of gore, is still fairly effective thanks to its (mostly) non-explicit, but still very disturbing, scenes of sexual violence.Anyone familiar with Craven's movie should know exactly what to expect from this one, since it doesn't try to add anything remotely original to the story—two pretty girls, Margaret (Irene Miracle) and Lisa (Laura D'Angelo), travelling home by train at Christmas, are raped and killed, but, by a twist of fate, the perpetrators of the crime end up at the house of the murdered teens' family, where they eventually receive a taste of their own medicine—however Aldo still manages to deliver a powerful movie that, if anything, succeeds in showing the audience the true ugliness of senseless violence.After a fairly dreadful Demis Roussos theme song, a rather drawn-out preamble introduces us to the two cuties who will end up wishing they'd taken a plane home, and the vile threesome who mercilessly torture them to death: Blackie and Curly, a couple of lowlife thugs, and a middle-class, but sadistic, woman. At about the forty minute mark, the nastiness finally kicks in and the film earns its reputation as a vicious little sucker: Aldo presents a series of tense and ugly scenes of humiliation which culminate in one of the girls being stabbed in the cooch whilst the other leaps from the train onto some rocks.Unfortunately, after these well realised and genuinely unnerving moments, the film finishes rather unsatisfactorily with only the two guys getting their comeuppance—the woman gets away with her crimes. Furthermore, a peeping tom, who spies on the girls being tortured and gets to join in on the fun for a while, also escapes retribution.Now I realise that in real life not everyone gets what they deserve, but with this being a rape/revenge flick, I expected a decent amount of revenge to follow the rape. With only half of the sleaze-bags in Night Train Murders ending up regretting their actions, I couldn't help but feel a bit cheated.Because of this reason, Night Train Murders, even with its superior production values, better acting and melancholy Morricone soundtrack, doesn't quite manage to equal the film it emulates.