Night Train to Terror (1985)

Night Train to Terror is an anthology with three stories held together with a wrap around involving a conversation on a train between God and Satan, while a band plays in another car.

God and Satan tell stories of individuals and debate whether the people should go to heaven or hell.  The segments are:

1. An asylum kidnaps wayward travelers and victims of car accidents to supplement their organ selling business.
2. A young musician working in a carnival dates a man who introduces her to being an actress in adult films to support her piano playing. Later she gets involved with a group that plays Russian roulette using lethal means other than guns.
3. A Nobel prize winner writes a book called God Is Dead, his wife has nightmares about Nazi’s and a stranger named Papini says weirdo Oliver was in WWII even though he’s not old enough to have fought in the war.

The train conductor is privy to God and Satan’s conversations. Only the three of them know the train is going to crash. But until that happens, the band is going to sing the same song in each section and dance poorly.  I thought the drummer had no idea how to play based on how she was hanging over the drums, but then she twirled the stick like a pro.  Did they teach her this or was she a drummer who can’t act like a drummer?

I hate this movie.  Maybe it’s the crappy band and dancing, or maybe it’s because it was cobbled together with each section being a truncated version of an individual film.  Why? It seems pointless.

Ridiculous chorus lyrics repeated ad nauseam 

Everybody's got something to do, everybody but you.

The drummer who can twirl a stick but
can’t convince you she’s drumming

God and Satan

Oh the 80s - sleeveless shirts, one lone glove, new wave makeup,
and lots of scarfs tied on the waist

The Nazi vampire version of David Cassidy

He’s still singing and they’re still dancing

Why hasn’t the band noticed this is not a normal track?

She Came From the Woods (2022)

 On the last day of summer camp at Briarbrook, the kids perform in a play, which seems weird since wouldn’t the last day be spent ensuring everyone was packed and ready to go home?  After the kids are put on the bus, the counselors pick up the camp and spend the final night around the campfire.  Peter, whose family owns the camp, peer pressures everyone into doing a ritual where they prick their fingers and invoke Agatha. Legend has it she was a camp nurse who was turned out to be a witch and met a bad fate in the woods.

Peters brother Sean is driving the kids home but the bus breaks down. While he tries to fix it, the kids disappear and then attack him. He calls his family to tell them he warned Peter not to do the ritual.  At this point the counselors are under attack from Agatha and the possessed children are heading to camp to wreak havoc.

This is set in the 80s so there are no cell phones.  I’m not sure how Derek keeps this job since he’s a violent hothead, No one would want this guy around their kids. But then again it’s the 80s, he’s got a mullet and he harasses women so maybe he’s supposed to be the cool guy personality. 

For some reason, the parents of the missing children have not called the cops to ask where their kids are.  We also have the trope where an explanation is not offered which causes drama due to a misunderstanding.  When they know people are dying, they announce over the PA that Ben and Ashley should come to the mess hall. But they don’t say it’s an emergency or they’re in danger until much later.  

The Bloodlines (2011)

 Aka The Passing

At the reading of their grandmothers will, her grandchildren discover she’s left the majority of her estate to them. But in order to get it, they need to spend the weekend in the house.  Their father is concerned about Elizabeth being there without him, but the lawyer advises the will specifically stipulates only the children can stay.  

The lawyer gives Elizabeth the key to a carved box her grandmother insisted she have.  When asked where it is, he says she needs to find it. Unlike real life where someone could search a mansion for weeks and never find it, she chances upon it the first day.  In it is a cryptic message from grandmother which says since she’s not there to teach her, she’ll have to discover what to do.  Couldn’t she maybe have left a clue in the note?

Jack and Ray see this weekend as an opportunity to party and invite some people over.   When the couples go off on their own, Cindy starts wearing some of grandmothers jewelry.  Josh says they should get rid of grandma’s voodoo stuff and jewelry since Mandy wants it out of there.  It’s unclear why Mandy is upset since she’s not related to grandmother.

Weird things start happening in the mansion.  Glimpses of people who aren’t in the room appear in mirrors.  Something unseen tries to drown Josh, and a weirdo chases one couple through the yard.  Mandy decides this is the perfect time to take a shower.

After two of the women disappear, Josh wants to call the cops, but Jake angrily refuses. It’s not clear why but you just know things are going to get worse. The weirdo outside turns out to be a slightly mutated relative named Billy who is being semi-cared for by the caretaker. The movie is told by Elizabeth in flashback while being interviewed by the cops the next day.  The main detective is played by Paul Gleason, best known for being the principle in The Breakfast Club. 

The movie is confusing.  Why didn’t grandma leave the estate to Billy or to Elizabeth with the stipulation that she care for Billy? What is the purpose in requiring the grandchildren stay for the weekend? Shouldn’t there have been a way to get Elizabeth involved without murdering other people and getting on the police’s radar? Why does the lawyer think he and Elizabeth have more than a lawyer/client relationship when they have literally only seen each other once at the reading of the will? And what sort of egomaniac thinks a woman is flirting and inviting him to stay when she literally says don’t ever come here again, only contact me via letter, and then disappears as he’s packing up?

Elizabeth’s deer in the headlights face

The door to the bathtub in the mirrored bathroom

Continuity alert - he answers the phone on the left side of the bed

But later in the call, he’s on the right side of the bed

Ghosts of Amityville (2022)

Olivia misses her mom who died a couple months ago in an accident. While she and her dad are heading to visit a relative, she falls asleep and has nightmares about a killer clown, who she is convinced killed her mom. 

The movie gets convoluted about ten minutes in when they arrive at a cabin by the lake and dad is called in to work. He tells his young daughter he’ll be gone for a few hours at work.  The clown shows up shortly after this. As she runs away, it’s day, then night, then day. Has dad been gone overnight?  

Just when the clown is about to catch her as she’s running through the woods, she wakes up in bed in the cabin.  What?  Has it been a dream this whole time?  Now she’s in a hotel. Is this still a dream? She calls her dad’s work but he’s not there. Inexplicably the boss demands she put her dad on the phone.

Thirty one minutes in and now we’re back in the car with dad. Screw you movie.

This is essentially a short film padded to full length.  The majority of the movie has no dialogue.  When there is dialogue, it doesn’t provide much information.  There are long scenes of driving where the camera is just shooting out the front windshield. At one point as they pulled back on the road, I started a stop watch. For four minutes the only dialogue was the father telling Olivia to go to sleep. Two of those minutes were shots out the front windshield in silence.

If you take a drink every time Olivia says dad or daddy, you’d probably die from alcohol poisoning. Also there’s a scene where the clown is after them and they can’t get the car started. It’s not clear why since they’ve had no car issues, but something that’s going to make it worse is them keeping the dome light on. It’s also going to light them up like a beacon in the darkness for the clown. Then the next day at a strategic moment, the car starts no problem. That’s not how cars work.

Ridiculous dialogue

Boss: Princess, where is your dad?

Olivia: I don’t know where my dad is.

Boss: Would you put your dad on the phone for me please?

Shining vibes

They’re both smoking but the vaper is being condescending

Okay we know what it looks like from the
back seat, but how does it look from the front?

The not so different view from the front of the car.

A crazy clown is after them, the car won’t start
but they keep their dome light on

Amityville Island (2020)

Kelly Jo stops at a yard sale and buys everything.  She loads the clothing into a box without looking at the condition, style or sizes.  She says she can’t be picky since she’s a single mom with four kids, but maybe she should check to see if it’s actually children’s clothing. Because some of that stuff looks huge.

When she gets home, she unpacks the box and is possessed by a doll full of evil. Then she murders her children and is sentenced to death. 

The warden has a fight club that he live streams to paying customers. Women fight in a utility corridor under the prison. The winner goes back to her cell and the loser is sent away. So no one notices there are women disappearing from the prison? 

Kelly Jo and her opponent Renata make the warden angry and are both sent to the island. Here they are injected with a tracking device. Not only doe it track their location if they try to run away, but it can also can shock them or release poison when remotely activated.

A doctor on the island is doing experiments which don’t seem to be going well since there are a couple of zombies walking the property.  The most interesting one has a bad wig and you can see where they forgot to tuck the bottom of his mask into his shirt.

This is not enjoyable in anyway. It’s tedious and hard to get through.  Why did I keep watching this? It made Amityville Exorcism look better by comparison, and that wasn’t good either. I was lured in by watching Polonia’s previous movie Amityville in Space which was ridiculous and amusing.  But maybe I’ll learn a lesson from these last two that it’s not worth it.

Why would the realtor handle a yard sale? How does an evil spirt jump from a person into a bear? Why was the shark the focus of the cover when it’s only in the movie for maybe a minute? How did the shark get possessed? Did I miss it or was it never explained? Does the reporter do anything other than sit at his kitchen table drinking and calling the prison wanting to interview Kelly Jo?

Ridiculous dialogue

Kelly Jo: Wish I knew this house was for sale before I moved here.

Realtor: Is that supposed to be a joke?

Indisposed? She’s been on death row for over a year. What could she possibly be doing?

At least the house has Amityville windows

The real estate agent doing a yard sale. Also there was
snow in the shot of the house, but no snow here

Reusing the costume from Amityville Exorcism

Glowing eyes is never a good sign

The warden and his crack staff at the prison fight club

I think the board falling on his neck was an accident since it
happened when he did a roll and kicked the shelf.
It looks like heavy plywood that would have hurt..

Well apparently spirits can transfer from humans to bears.

The zombie with normal hands.  Check out the edge of his mask.

The Mylar background was also used in Amityville in Space

Amityville Exorcism (2017)

A carpenter on death row confesses he stole wood from a job at the Amityville house and something evil came with it. He asks Father Benna to check on his customers to see if they need help. 

Cut to a couple arguing because Jeremy doesn’t like Amy going out with a male friend.  The casting is in question when it’s revealed this is not a couple, but a father and daughter.   Dad is an alcoholic who tries to forget that he killed Amy’s mother by drunk driving. Surprisingly this doesn’t come into play other than when Amy is possessed by the evil residing in the lumber in their basement.

Father Benna comes along just at the right time and begins an exorcism.  He also fights off five old dolls.  It’s pretty ridiculous seeing a grown man rolling around on the floor holding dolls as if he’s fighting with them and they’re able to move.

Questions abound.  Why did the burglar wear a ski mask to break in, but then pull it up to reveal his face once inside? Why did the carpenter wait until the day before his execution to try to help his customers? How much lumber did he steal that he could use it on multiple jobs? Why are there four plates and drinks at the bbq when there are only three people there? Why is there a pot of pasta on the table and pasta on their plates when Jeremy was cooking hotdogs? Why would they cook nine hotdogs for three people and have ten more sitting in a pack beside the grill? And why did Mark Polonia build his pool so close to the road? 

Ridiculous dialogue

Someone has to do something

Who is down here? I can’t see you.. but I can hear you.

This wood. This lumber. Where did it come from?

That’s enough blood to fill six rats.

Oh the framing of this shot

Husband and wife? Or father and daughter?

There is a fourth plate and drink. Also Dad was cooking
hotdogs on the grill, but everyone is eating pasta

The non-moving dolls

Okay

How much lumber did this guy steal from the Amityville job?

Why is the pool so close to the road? And
why do they have nineteen hotdogs for three people?

Plenty of land to put the pool away from the road

Bloody Muscle Bodybuilder in Hell (1995)

Naoto, his ex-girlfriend Mika, and a psychic head to the abandoned home of Naoto’s father.  The home has been empty for thirty years.  Mika is interested in photographing ghosts and his fathers house is supposedly haunted.

They look around and the psychic asks them to live a so he can  commune with whatever is inside.  This is a big mistake when he ends up possessed by the spirit of the woman Naoto’s father murdered.

When the psychic doesn’t return, Naoto and Mika go inside to find him.  He attacks them and as they try to flee, they discover they’re locked inside and there’s no way out.

The rest of the movie is them fighting to survive. The house is tiny which makes the fight scenes interesting as the cameraman is in the hallway with them.  Naoto gets advice from the spirit of his father, but it’s not clear if he’s guiding him correctly, especially since we already know he’s a murderer and the victim is looking for revenge.

This is touted as the Japanese Evil Dead.  There’s lots of blood and stop motion.  

Ridiculous dialogue

Naoto - You killed her?

Father’s ghost - That woman had completely lost her mind. It couldn’t be helped.

Naoto, Mika and the psychic check out the house

The cameraman should be commended for
shooting the fights in this small hallway

Oh this is not what you want to see on the wall of
an abandoned house that is supposed to be haunted

Naoto brings hairspray with him to the abandoned house

The Stalker, Part II (2023)

Picking up a year after the first movie, Steve apologizes to his kids for making bad decisions over the past year. It’s not clear what he’s done that could be worse than what got them into this mess, but the kids say they have his back and miss mom since she’s in jail.

The police tell Wendy the man she killed wasn’t actually a meter reader, but part of a plot to kill her. It seems odd it would take a year to determine this since employment records should put that to rest pretty quickly. Due to this new development, they allow Wendy to go home and finish her sentence under house arrest.  Was she convicted of murder? Do they just let murderers go home when there is new evidence?

Meanwhile in another part of town, Mark plans to continue his revenge and is forcing pizza delivery man Craig to be his sidekick. Has no one noticed Craig was missing for the past year? What is keeping Craig from leaving? He’s not there by choice. Craig’s super creepy since he’s fine with kidnapping Wendy, just too cowardly to do it on his own.

When Wendy, Steve and son Hayden find a VHS tape in the fireplace with watch me written on it, they discover Mark is still after them.   He’s bugged their home and calls to tell them to open the briefcase left at theri house, which is filled with C4. He also mentions he’s kidnapped their other son, which you think he’d lead with but no. 

Mark demands Steve tell their boss he didn’t do anything wrong and was unjustly fired. Steve says no which brings back into focus that Steve is horrible. He’s more concerned about what his boss thinks than that his son is held hostage by a maniac.

Craig is posted outside to make sure the family doesn’t leave. He keeps walking the perimeter so they could either throw the briefcase outside or leave when he was on the opposite side of the house. Instead they sit next to the C4.  Later we have an ending that could mean Mark survived again.  

The strangest scene involves the briefcase. Why did Mark lock it when he wants them to know what’s inside? They have trouble getting into it because they are unable to understand the code, which is clearly written on the tag as 108.  Wendy says, “Try the number 801.”   When it doesn’t work, she frets and says, “It’s not working… 108?”  Yes, of course it’s 108. Those are literally the numbers on the tag, you Victorian potato.

I wasn’t fond of the first movie but they did get me to watch this one by teasing Mark’s survival at the end of it. I don’t like this movie either. It’s not the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But it’s questionable to ask the viewer to root for a couple who have no problem lying to get Mark fired so they can steal his bonus and spend it on luxury items. Maybe have protagonists who are good people so we care about them.

Ridiculous dialogue

I don’t know what to do. I know what I did was wrong but I can’t tell my boss this stuff. [Said while sitting with his family next to a briefcase full of C4, while his youngest son is held by a kidnapper whose one demand is to tell the boss he lied]

Do they not let families into the building when
they’re releasing you from jail?

The VHS which somehow fell into the fireplace

Amazingly they still have a VHS player in the living room

“Try the number 801” says Wendy

No Filter (2022)

While on vacation with her parents, Anna sees Scary Scott, an influencer known for his prank and scares. When she approaches him, he hands her a mask and tells her to go scare her parents.  But Anna ends up sneaking up behind him and scaring him instead. When he tags her in his videos, her social media blows up.

Back at school in the fall, Anna is suddenly popular due to her almost three hundred thousand followers. She’s also become vapid, constantly filming herself or taking selfies.  Her parents are irritated at her personality change and even her friends aren’t happy with the pranks she’s pulling on them. She’s got a terrible attitude and says if something happens but it’s not posted online, it doesn’t matter.

While Anna was away, her former bully became friends with her best friend, which causes Anna to be upset.  But it’s hard to feel sorry for Anna when she’s so self absorbed, using her online friendship with Scary Scott to stay relevant, and constantly talking to her followers, some of whom are turning on her. She’s even starting another channel where for her scares and pranks.

Scott has a scare challenge but what no one knows is Scott is dead so he’s not posting.  Anna’s phone is starting to get weird and she’s seeing a vision of herself but with black eyes. The place where she and Scott met overseas has lore that if your balance tips to the dark side, the demon inside you can awake. So things are not going to go well for Anna, what with her ego and arrogance in thinking everything she says and thinks is interesting and must be posted online. 

Things start going wrong for Anna and anyone that comes into her orbit.  Too bad for those who weren’t looking for that attention.  It’s an average movie where you want a bigger payoff in the end.

Influencers doing their influencer thing

Painting her eyes and mouth in the girls bathroom for a prank

She’s now popular enough to get negative attention