Like Screamtime, 1985's Night Train to Terror is a patchwork anthology, cobbled together Frankenstein-like, from trimmed-down versions of three other no-budget horror films. And one of those -– 1981's wonderfully titled Scream Your Head Off –- wasn't even completed. But while Screamtime manages to (mostly) rise above its mix-and-match origins, Night Train to Terror is an incoherent mess, made even more baffling by its wrap-around story, which features a debate between God (Ferdy Mayne of The Fearless Vampire Killers) and Satan (The Godfather's Tony Giorgio) discussing three stories to determine the fates of their protagonists.
The stories are sloppy splatter nonsense –- Richard Moll of Night Court turns up as an attendant at an asylum whose job description seems to concern dismembering victims, and then appears in a completely different role opposite slumming Hollywood vet Cameron Mitchell in a segment about cults. Between the heavenly/diabolical debate and the horror stories, we're also treated to endless footage of a terrible pop-rock band performing the same song over and over.
Night Train to Terror's script comes courtesy of screenwriter Philip Yordan, who won an Oscar for the 1954 western Broken Lance. No matter how far down the movieland ladder Mr. Yordan fell, he might be the only writer who can claim both an Oscar and a script about God, Satan, psycho, cultists, and a crappy rock band on a train (which crashes in the film's conclusion) as part of the same career.
