Review - Last Stop on the Night Train (Banned film series)

Banned films series - After reviewing Cannibal Holocaust, I will do a bunch of films that have been banned at one stage or another - Last Stop on the Last Night Trains is first on this list.

Title: L'ultimo treno della notte (AKA - Night Train Murders, The New House on The Left, Second House on The Left, Don't Ride on Late Night Trains, Last Stop on the Night Train, Late Night Trains, Last House Part II and Xmas Massacre)

Banned: Was originally banned in the UK (amongst other countries), re-released in 2008 un-cut.

Let’s get this out of the way first - The Late Night Trains is a straight out ripoff of The House on The Left, however contrary to the normal rules of ripoffs, this film creates its own sense of icky and uncomfortable atmosphere.

As stated before the plot is ripped straight from Last House on The Left and transplanted to a train, of course there a few slight changes, which helps the film out.

The plot crunch:

A pair of psychotic hoodlums (Flavio Bucci and Gianfranco De Grassi) and an equally demented nymphomaniac woman (Macha Meril) end up terrorizing two young girls on a train trip from Germany to Italy.

After a perfunctory set up involving the girls getting on the train, the thugs shown being…well thugs and beating on a Santa(!), the film moves to the titular train and the film kicks off. The weirdness starts when Blackie (Bucci) eye humps (then bangs) a rich, older lady (Meril) who ends being a total freak and decides to hang with the thugs.

When the girls are held captive by the thugs and the older woman, things get really strange, as they invite a random old man in to their cabin to rape one of the girls, which he duly does…no I’m not kidding - it is like there are just total freaks on this train.

There is a real underlying sexual simmering to the film before anything sexual happens, from the glossy way the two teens are shot to the dinner party scene with the parents of one of the girls, giving the film, a very strange feel to it.

Aldo Lado directs the film quite well, if not a little heavy handed, for instance - the bathroom sex scene, which is shot with flair but then includes a cut away shot of a train going into a tunnel, just to make sure you realise that, you know - these two are having sex!

The script is clunky, poorly written and like the directing is heavy handed. All through the film, there is a cut shots of a dinner party in between the girls being abused and all the talk is about a violent society and how even the rich contribute to it, drawing the clear and about as subtle as a sledgehammer link between the rich, older woman and the poor, young punks that she manipulates into abusing the girls. A case could be made for the woman actually being the Devil, however no supernatural events or even any talk of this is in the film, so it pure speculation on my part).



Shit got real.



This film isn’t as graphic or as brutal as The Last House on the Left, however it still does pack a punch of its own with the ending, where evil is punished but the real villain of the film gets away scot free.

So whilst this Italian production wasn’t particularly original and despite its many, many flaws – It has a lot going for it, including a very creepy harmonica that gets played with the arrival of the thugs by one of the thugs and is a highly watchable piece of exploitation cinema.