Review and news hub for movies, music and video games

Movie:		3.0
Picture:		5.0
Sound:		5.0
Extras:		3.0
Score:		4.0

Director(s):	Gideon Raff
Writer(s):	Gideon Raff
Starring:	Thora Birch • Gideon Emery • Kavan Reece • Derek Magyar • Gloria Votsis
Genre:	Horror
Release Date:	November 17, 2009
Rated:

List Price:	DVD - $20.99
Amazon:

Of all the possible reactions that one could have to a film (or album, or television show), there’s probably nothing worse than having it make you wonder if something you like was even good in the first place. For a long time, I have defended the Hostel series, arguing that it has a great deal more subtext than most critics give it credit for, and that its tonal inconsistencies are actually quite deliberate pieces of black humor on the part of director Eli Roth. Now I am confronted with Train, a film that is so similar in plot and theme that I can’t really argue that anything said in Hostel isn’t said here. Except that I really like Hostel, and Train totally sucks.

Traveling through Eastern Europe with her college wrestling team, Alex (Thora Birch) goes out one night with her friends after a humiliating defeat at the hands of a local team. The evening ends in a brawl, and they come back to their hotel too late to catch their train to the next match. Coach Harris (Todd Jensen) is furious, but all seems to be made better when a mysterious woman (Koyna Ruseva) offers them a ride aboard her train. Without giving away exactly why (they’re a little more interesting than typical torture fare), you can probably guess from the cover of the box that all sorts of torture ensues, and that all of these comely, attractive college students are going to come to gruesome fates (not all of which involve dying). You’d be right.

I recognize that it’s kind of unprofessional to so prominently feature another movie in your review for a movie, but I assure you that not mentioning Hostel in this case would be like having an entire conversation about Mac and Me without mentioning E.T. The dark, dank medical instrument filled torture chambers are the same, the perky, unsuspecting victims are the same, and even the third world setting is the same (down to the same menacing, thick Eastern European accents). Moreover, the transformation that Alex undergoes is roughly the same as the one that Beth (the lead girl played by Lauren German) undergoes in Hostel: Part Two, right down to some of the same gimmicks. While it would be remiss to say that those themes are unique to Hostel, the combination of those factors makes this film’s inspiration unmistakable. Not only that, but there is an attempt here to deepen some of what I perceived as Hostel’s colonialist themes. While the killers there were mostly business people taking advantage of the lax law keeping of the third world, Train recognizes some more of the moral complexities of that situations, casting its villains as people confronted with difficult decisions that the American protagonists were never forced to make.

So why am I willing to defend one film and not the other? Part of it comes down to a simple matter of filmic expression. Whatever else one might think of Eli Roth, it’s hard to argue that he is not an accomplished film stylist, whereas nearly everything about Gideon Raff’s direction suggests a total lack of assurance in everything from the editing to the performances. Another strong element is the fact that this film never gathers the momentum to elicit any feeling that might be described as intense. During the long stretches where there is absolutely no torture going on, the film strikes you as something that could easily be rated PG-13, and totally appropriate for kids, while other films in this genre have been able to suggest menace with little more than a creaking door or a stiff wind. It leads to a generally underwhelming experience.

Unfortunately, a certain amount of the blame must also fall on Thora Birch. Several years after perfecting the disaffected teenager in American Beauty and Ghost World, Thora seems a little old to be playing someone in college, and never convincingly conveys the terror or ferocity necessary to make the role work. Indeed in several scenes, she seems to be channeling her characters from those films. I don’t want to be mean to her (it’s too bad she hasn’t developed the indie career that you might have thought she would have), but I doubt that any more ‘scream queen’ roles are in her future.

DVD Bonus Features

Behind The Scenes - A short documentary on the making of the film, a depressing amount of which is footage of them shooting a scene, then cutting to the final scene in the film.