Terror Express
Genre: Exploitation
Original title: La ragazza del vagone letto
Director: Ferdinando Baldi
Year: 1979
Three thugs commandeer a couple of cars on a moving train and spread terror among the passengers.
Terror Express is a film often overlooked by Italian film fans in the Last House On The Left style of film, which for a few years almost became a genre of its own. Aldo Lado's brilliant Late Night Trains had came four years prior to this with its setting being largely on a train, though that film only used the train as a set-up for the revenge that came after. Terror Express (minus a couple of short scenes) is based completely on the train & it manages to sustain its nasty thrills by constantly moving, never taking a second to reflect & cramming in as much sleazy nastiness that it can in its short 80 minute running time.
It's directed by Ferdinando Baldi who mostly had success with Spaghetti Westerns such as Viva, Django, he clearly understood what type of film was making with so much attention being geared towards the sex & violence that the film contains.
The cast is one full of many faces that Italian genre fans will recognise even if they are unfamiliar with their names. Silvia Dionisio (once married to Ruggero Deodato) plays a hooker who works on the night train. The trio of well spoken thugs that take over the train contain Austrian actor Werner Pochath (The Cat o' Nine Tails, Ratman) & Carlo De Mejo (City of the Living Dead, The House by the Cemetery). Elsewhere on the train we have Venantino Venantini (Cannibal Ferox) & Czech actress Zora Kerova (The New York Ripper, Cannibal Ferox). I spent half the film thinking 'I know you from somewhere' whilst looking at various characters faces.
The film is written by a legendary figure here on Cult Italia, George Eastman. As well as acting, Eastman was a screen-writer that gave us films of such bad taste as Porno Holocaust & Bestialità so it is no surprise that Terror Express contains many ultra-sleazy scenes. First of all you have the three villains who at first appear to be more of a nuisance rather than a threat. They arrive for dinner with their loud music & are rude & obnoxious. Though things soon spiral out of control when they end up taking a gun from a police-man who is escorting a prisoner on the overnight train. From then on the characters become sadistic in their nature, taking over the train with violence and sexual abuse.
In one scene, after Silvia Dionisio's character has been raped 3 or 4 times the prisoner is sent in to continue the rape. He turns out to be a sympathetic character and tries to fight back but is beaten by the thugs so the raped women decides to have sex with him after. There's also a man on the train with his family who sleeps with said prostitute and makes her wear his own daughters nightgown as he has incestuous feelings about his daughter. It is that kind of movie & I guess no surprise that it came from the insane mind of George Eastman!
In the UK the film was caught up in the video nasty scare of the early 80s when the Fletcher label release was seized by a number of police forces during raids. Though most probably the film was mistaken for Late Night Trains which was on their hit-list at the time.
Late Night Trains is still the go-to film if you want a exploitation film set on a train but Terror Express isn't far behind. The inevitable revenge in the final few minutes doesn't deliver the payback that these type of films perhaps should, but that aside this is sleazy, nasty, fast paced, fun & entertaining slice of exploitation cinema which deserves to be seen by more fans of this type of cinema
Rating: ★★★½
