AMOK TRAIN – All aboard for some eighties Italian horror garbage. 'Amok Train' – is it about an out of control train? About a young American student who happens to be possessed? About an out of control train who happens to be possessed? 'Amok Train' doesn't really care about any of these questions, to be frank. There's just enough plot to string some ropey fx together - a few American college kids go over to Serbia for a reason that probably gets mentioned at some point, whereupon they end up in a village full of evil stereotype Eastern Europeans in hoods who clack stones, get chased by aforementioned, escape onto a train where demonic things happen and eventually lead to someone becoming the bride of Satan (almost). Chances are you'll be as interested in plot and logic as the filmmakers were, and if so, you're in luck, as obviously the main draw here, beyond the dickheadedness of pretty much everything else about it, is the essential element of trash. The latter is abundant enough to justify wading through the set up and the uneventful passages (the film does take the scenic route at times). If you want gore, you'll get a smattering and maybe more, with oddly excessive face ripping and various dismemberments providing nice counterpoints to the well shot scenes of trains passing through countryside. If you want freaky and just a bit 'erm, is that really OK?', well there's a hymen bothering old woman who sets out to prove the female protag's virginity twice and seems to really get into it. But best of all, if you want sheer eighties fantasy bombast, there's a mute monk who plays a recorder and turns out to be a benevolent spirit guide. Yeah, he gets the train just like everyone else. 'Amok Train' – can't scale the heights of 'Night Train To Terror', but still a pretty fun ride. And that last sentence does actually make sense in my mind, god help me.
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