28 of 31 Horror Films I've Never Seen 2016: Night Train Murders (1975)

If it hasn't become apparent in the last few reviews, I've got a weird obsession with Italian Horror.  The Italians seemed to figure out that everything had been done already and made a great point to blatantly capitalize off of then current films overseas with shoestring budgets and looser aesthetic morals.  The directors in the film studios were often very prolific, if they weren't directing multiple films per year, they were producing other directors, writing, and sometimes acting.  In 1975, Aldo Lado endeavored to put the Italian stamp on Wes Craven's wildly successful Grindhouse classic, The Last House On The Left (which is also a remake of Ingmar Bergman's The Virgin Spring) with the equally disturbing and squirm inducing Night Train Murders.

The basic plot of Night Train Murders is very identical to Last House On The Left but the details are subtly different.  Lisa (Laura D'Angelo) and Margaret (Irene Miracle) are taking a night train from Germany to Italy to spend Christmas with Lisa's family.  On the train ride they encounter a trio of sadistic people (Flavio Bucci, Gianfranco De Grassi, Macha Méril) who toy with, violate, and ultimately murder the two girls and in a twist of fate they wind up in the hands of Lisa's parents.

What I found incredibly effective about the film is how the first half is spent examining the mundane goings of life and the clueless naivety of the wealthy.  It's almost 40 minutes or longer into the film before the psychotic trio sets themselves upon the two girls.  Lado treats it a little differently here too.  Unlike most films of the genre, he doesn't fetishize the violence at all.  It's horrific, jarring, and completely disturbing (as it well should be) and feels more like an endurance test.  His stylistic flair is all in lighting as the violent violation of the girls takes place under the cold blue light of night.  Unlike Craven, Lado's villains are simpletons.  They're disgusting, but murder is never a present thought on their minds until the act occurs in the heat of the moment.  It is precisely at this moment when the harsh light of day exposes the scene in the train car and reality comes crashing upon our villains like a ton of bricks.

The writing is a little clunky, but there are a number of interesting moments where discussions of morality take place.  The villains only fall into the hands of Lisa's parents because the parents believe themselves to be upstanding people of generous morals and when the discovery of the children's death makes it's play all those moral quandaries are forgotten.  The question becomes simple:  If given the chance, would a parent be able to forgive their transgressor or would they take vengeance?  While clearly a retelling of the same moral story, Night Train Murders succeeds in it's subtle differences and it's unflinching portrayal to be a truly disturbing piece of shock horror.