Crap Train To Terror

 

 (imdb)

NIGHT TRAIN TO TERROR-1985-On a train, a terrible rock band play. Also on the train are God (un-billed Ferdy Mayne) and Satan (un-billed Tony Giorgio) who discuss various things in this low budget trilogy. 

In the first story, “The Case of Harry Bilings”, an accident victim named Harry (John Phillip Law) is turned into a weirdo who drugs women and brings them to an institution where a big doofus intern Otto (Richard Moll) rapes and dismembers them and sells their body parts. Later a female doctor lobotomizes a male doctor. Harry decapitates Otto and discovers the male doctor operating on the female doctor. I thought this might have been a misfire black comedy despite the subject matter.

Number 2: “The Case of Gretta Connors”. A musician named Greta (Merideth Hayes) is turned into a porno actress by a jerk named George (J. Martin Sellers). Glen, a preppie type sees one of Gretta's movies and falls in love with her. Somehow, he meets her and they become lovers. It turns out George is the head of “The Death Club” whose members have all had brushes with death. Something called a “Transinian Winged Beetle” (terrible animation) stings a guy to death and his eyeballs explode. They also play an electrocution game where an African American guy is burned to death. Later they play a game of death with a construction ball that looks like something from the '60's “Batman” TV show.

The third story is called “The Case of Claire Hansen”, Mr. Weiss (Marc Lawrence) enlists a police Lt. (Cameron Mitchell) and his assistant Dieter (also Marc Lawrence) to help him trap a Nazi. Then Weiss is killed by a fanged monster. Coroner Claire Hansen (Faith Cliff) examines the body. Her husband Peter is the author of the book “Is God Dead?”. A guy named Papini warns Peter the devil is coming for him. The Nazi is now the still young Mr. Oliver (Robert Bristol), a murderer sporting goat legs. The boyfriend of one of Oliver's victims tries to kill him but is crushed by a red eyed monster (terrible animation). Strange rubbery demons attack Claire but it seems to be an illusion. A priest tells her she was picked by God to battle the devil. He gives her a box and tells her to cut out Oliver's heart and put it in the box. A badly animated monster kills Papini. The Lt and Dieter are blown up. Then Oliver turns into a demon (bad puppet) and kills Peter. Somehow Claire runs Oliver down with her car and takes him to a hospital to remove his heart. Everything goes awry in the bloody operating room finale but Satan wins.

 The band plays some more but fortunately are killed when the train crashes. (but sadly, they seem to come back to life) This out of whack z budget trilogy was actually made from three full length or almost finished films and the third story actually was released in full length form as CATACLYSM. Four directors are credited but the screenwriting for all the stories go to one person, Phillip Yordan, who once won an Oscar for the screenplay of BROKEN LANCE (1954)!

Thanks for reading!