Terror Express (1980) User Reviews

Not much terror on this express...

[The_Void · 5/10 · 25 September 2006]

I've got to say, I'm a big fan of these 'Last House on the Left' rip-offs, even the ones that most people seem to hate are often held in relatively high esteem by me; but one of these sorts of films that I didn't like much was Aldo Lado's 'Night Train Murders', and unfortunately it would seem that trains and The Last House on the Left don't mix, as Terror Express is another lacklustre rip-off. Something that this sort of film really needs is a resoundingly nasty lead character; and while Terror Express offers up three potential candidates, not one of them steps up and becomes this villain, leaving the lacking in the most important area. It actually gets off to a good start as three young men on a passenger train begin slightly irritating the guests on board. This leads the audience to believe that there is more in store, but unfortunately it never really gets going once the scene has been set. From there, the trio end up 'taking over' the train and use their new found power to terrorise the guests and rape the women.

It has to be said that there's a fair amount of sleaze in this film, which will be pleasing to many viewers; but there's hardly any blood. Director Ferdinando Baldi seemed to think that he could get away with replacing the blood with sex scenes, and he may have gotten away with it too; if he could film a brutal sex scene. The idea that these men have taken the train by force goes out of the window once it gets to the sex, as the people that you would expect to be powerful and forceful seem all too keen to show their women a good time, and despite one very tame 'sandwich' sequence, none of the sex is particularly interesting. Since a lot of the film is taken up by these sex scenes, this becomes a massive problem. Films like this are often lacking in style, suspense and credibility; but you know you're watching a bad one when it's boring you. As you might expect, none of the acting is up to anything; and the central three in particular stand out for being rubbish. The direction is lacking in style, and there's very little tension or suspense; making it difficult to care what is going to happen. Overall, this is a pretty crappy example of an exploitation film, and I can't recommend it.

David, Ernie and Phil are loco!

[BA_Harrison · 6/10 · 22 September 2020]

Directed by Fernando Baldi, this Italian train-bound thriller is pure exploitation, its plot clearly inspired by the success of infamous shocker Last House on the Left and its many imitators (most notably, Aldo Lado's Night Train Murders).

Like so many disaster movies of the '70s, the film begins by introducing us to various passengers destined for a most unpleasant journey, and the three despicable slime-balls responsible for their suffering: David (Werner Pochath), Ernie (Carlo De Mejo) and Phil (Fausto Lombardi). After an excruciatingly long establishing shot of the train leaving the station, the film gradually picks up speed, with the trio of dirt-bags making eyes at all of the hot women, and causing trouble for the conductor (Gino Milli), who makes extra cash by pimping out lovely hooker Juliet (Silvia Dionisio) to the passengers.

The sleaze starts when dissatisfied wife Anna (Zora Kerova, from Cannibal Ferox) allows Ernie to have sex with her in the washroom; the couple strip off and get down to business, but to Anna's surprise, they are joined by David, the men forcing her into a standing-up threesome (one riding up front, the other in the caboose?). Meanwhile, Phil tries to break into Juliet's cabin for a little fun of his own.

One of the passengers, a policeman escorting prisoner Peter (Gianluigi Chirizzi) to Germany, intervenes, but is overpowered by the thugs, who take his gun; Peter is released and his handcuffs used to constrain the copper.

Not sleazy enough for you so far? Well how about this then? Sexy teenager Evelyn (Fiammetta Flamini) is feeling hot, so her father (Roberto Caporali) suggests she gets naked, which she does, before slipping back under her bed covers. Dear dad then goes to visit Juliet, insisting that the hooker wears his daughter's nightdress and lets him call her Evelyn. That's right... dad's got a thing for his daughter! Naughty, naughty!

From here-on in, its continuous sex and general debauchery, until the train stops so that a wheel-tapper can inspect the train, at which point nice-guy convict Peter decides to play the hero and fight back. I was hoping for some satisfying violence to round off the film, the three extremely irritating baddies fully deserving of grisly and graphic demises, but Baldi really fumbles the ball here, his trio of obnoxious jerks killed off in really lame fashion: David is hit by a passing train (at least I think that's what happens; it's unclear and very dark), Ernie is pushed off the train while it is moving, and Phil is stabbed by Peter, the actual stabbing occurring off the edge of the screen.

There's enough depravity to keep most exploitation fans happy for the duration, but the ending needed to be much stronger to qualify the film as a classic of the genre. 5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Horror-Sex im Nachtexpress

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 21 January 2024]

La ragazza del vagone letto (The Girl In the Sleeping Car) also goes by Terror Express and Horror-Sex im Nachtexpress. It's directed by Fernando Bali, who also made Nine Guests for a Crime and Treasure of the Four Crowns. It's writer? Luigi Montefiori, the lunatic best known as George Eastman.

Bloodlust (1977)

It's as if someone said, "Can we make Last Stop on the Night Train but somehow make it scummier and more upsetting?" And that someone was George Eastman and maybe people told him, "George, that movie is already pretty upsetting." But this was the same year that George ate a baby on a Greek island in Antropophagus, so was telling him no? No one, that's who.

You should never get on a night train in Italy. But if you do, if you see David (Werner Pochath, the vampire-like killer of Bloodlust), Ernie (Carlo De Mejo) and Philip (Fausto Lombardi). They lose their composure when Guilla (Silvia Dionisio, Andy Warhol's Dracula), a sex worker who has a deal with the conductor (Gino Milli) to do business on the train, refuses to sleep with any of them. They harass everyone in the dining car and despite a frustrated married woman named Anna (Zora Kerova, prepping for how horrifically she would be killed in The New York Ripper) defending them and coming on to Ernie, two of them assault her in a bathroom.

It wasn't like the train was all that great to start with, what with a family falling apart - the father (Roberto Caporali) wants his daughter (Fiammetta Flamini) and not his wife (Gianfranca Dionisi) - along with a dying elderly couple and a cop (Giancarlo Maestri) transporting Peter, a criminal (Gianluigi Chirizzi) to prison riding this evening's rails. The criminals free Peter and slowly ruin everyone's life, including playing dice for the chance to deflower the teenager, making her dad throw the final roll to see who gets her. But that guy isn't blameless, because he's already paid Guilla to wear his daughter's nightgown while he takes her.

These criminals should be killed in the most brutal way possible, which doesn't happen, but nonetheless, if you want to see how far things will go - if this movie was made in an Italian exploitation high school, the mean lady teacher would say, "I expect this from you, Montefiori, but I can't believe that you've corrupted Fernando like this." - this movie will drag you there.

Great cast in a sleazy movie

[kevgates · 27 January 2001]

Terror Express is another entry into the Last House on the Left sub-genre that emerged in the 70s. To its credit its one of the more enjoyable films full of sleazy characters and a top-notch cast. Look out for Zora Kerova's double entry scene, the weirdo father who secretly wants to make love to his daughter, and Carlo De Mejo in an almost hardcore sequence involving the said daughter. Jesus how could anyone ever describe this film as dull? Not for the easily offended for sure but definitely one for the collection of any Italian horror-sleaze merchant.

I Spit on your Train!

[Coventry · 3/10 · 6 December 2005]

Another sadistic and ultra-sleazy late 70's/early 80's revenge movie?? Wes Craven sure launched a popular trend with his "Last House on the Left" Although "Terror Express" is more like a rip-off of other rip-offs, like "I Spit on your Grave" and especially "Night Train Murders". Storywise, this movie has absolutely nothing new to offer so the only thing left to do for director Ferdinando Baldi was to multiply the sleaze-factor by a thousand! This is actually just a soft core porn flick that gets a little bit rough near the ending. On the night train from Rome are three hopelessly imbecile loser running amok. They provoke the male travelers and sexually harass the females. Things get a little out of control and a traveling convict comes to the rescue of a prostitute who keeps being screwed around by the three. This is a very tame movie and there wasn't even enough budget to buy a couple bags of fake blood. This type of movies is generally infamous for the brutal rape sequences and the discriminating behavior towards women, but the sex in "Terror Express" isn't unsettling at all. On the contrary, these 'rapists' spend more time orally pleasuring their victims then getting some themselves! The music is great, the dialogs are unintentionally hilarious and the characters are the most ridiculous ones I ever beheld. The villains are wimps and the train-passengers are so motionless they look like part of the set. If you like your exploitation as sleazy as it gets, this is your film. However, your hunger for blood and controversy will definitely not be stilled. "Terror Express" should be in the porn-section of videostores.

Sleazy thriller which starts out well but rapidly loses its way.

[barnabyrudge · 3/10 · 23 August 2006]

The unpleasant "home invasion" genre can be traced back to Wes Craven's early sleazefest "Last House On The Left", with such nasty off-shoots as "I Spit On Your Grave", "Wrong Way" and "The Visitors" soon following in the footsteps of that film. Here, in this early '80s Italian offering the same plot is regurgitated once more, with the twist being that this one is set on a continental train. "La Ragazza Del Vagone Letto" – known in English-speaking countries as "Terror Express" – starts out surprisingly well but about twenty minutes in it takes a turn for the worse, as the sex scenes start to gain precedence over the more serious action and suspense.

David, Phil and Ernie, three rich youths who wallow in terrorising and humiliating others, board a trans-continental express in Italy. The train is full of other passengers, among them prostitute Juliette (Silvia Dionisio) who rides the train frequently and has struck up a deal with one of the porters to act as a kind of pimp, persuading the male passengers to part with their cash for a night of passion in her sleeping compartment. The three cretins quickly set about upsetting the passengers with their aggressive, drunken behaviour, but matters get more serious when they seize control of an entire car on the express and barricade themselves in from the rest of the train. Pretty soon, they are revelling in their temporary control…. a young wife (Zora Kerova) is raped by two of the youths in a cramped compartment; Juliette herself is subjected to a prolonged sexual assault; and later the odious trio force the male passengers to role a dice in order to decide which one will rape a 16 year old virgin travelling with her parents (a concept made doubly tasteless by the fact that her father is one of the men forced to play the game). The only passenger who seems prepared to fight back is a convict who is being escorted to Germany, but what hope does one man have against three armed thugs?

La Ragazza Del Vagone Letto gets off to a decent start. Various intriguing characters are introduced, and the three hoodlums are shown to have a genuinely unsettling influence over the travellers. Though the story is clearly the stuff of exploitation, the opening scenes are built up carefully and the film seems to be rising above the usual gutter-level of its genre. Things fall apart during a horrid scene in which Kerova is sex-sandwiched in a toilet compartment by two of the thugs. The scene is gloatingly filmed, and the effect does not seem to be to generate sympathy for the victim or hatred towards the perpetrators… instead, we are being asked to feel turned on. This is sensationalism at its worst. Further humiliating rapes follow, but the rape sequences involve too much lingering camera work over acts of oral sex and the female genitalia. One sequence featuring the 16 year old girl teeters on the brink of hard core and feels particularly "wrong". By the end of La Ragazza Del Vagone Letto it is easy to forget that it was intended as a thriller, for the final hour of the film is dedicated to pornography rather than suspense. Lovers of sleaze will revel in it; others might want to look elsewhere.

Really, really, really, really rubbish Italian exploitation.

[poolandrews · 1/10 · 30 August 2006]

La Ragazza del Vagone Letto, or Terror Express! as it was called on the version I saw, starts as various passengers board a long distance train. Three thuggish idiots, Dave, Phil & Ernie (Carlo De Mejo) board & it's clear that they're there to cause trouble as they intimidate & verbally abuse the other passengers & staff. As the train speeds along things turn nasty when a prostitute named Juliette (Silvia Dionisio) refuses to have sex with Dave, he & his mates decide to hold the entire train hostage so they can have an orgy with Juliette &, well not much else actually happens apart from some hero cop & his prisoner who set about saving the day. Erm, that's it really...

This Italian production was directed by Ferdinando Baldi & is complete total & utter crap from start to finish. The script by George Eastman as Luigi Montefiori could just as easily be described as a really boring porno as much as a horror/thriller. It is tediously slow, it's 35 minutes before anything even remotely sleazy happens & as a whole the film lacks the sort of exploitation elements that Italian sleaze & horror was delivering at that time. The film can be compared to another Italian production the infinitely better The House on the Edge of the Park (1980) made the same year, it's a very broad comparison though as everything that made The House on the Edge of the Park the notorious film that it is is absent from La Ragazza del Vagone Letto, there's no blood, no gore, almost no violence, there's only a couple of really tame rapes, the story has no twists or turns & as it's incredibly boring to watch. Italian sleaze & horror from the late 70's & early 80's isn't known for it's strong story lines or great scripts but this films really does scrape the bottom-of-the-barrel on all counts. The character's are awful, the film spends the first 30 plus minutes building them up & giving some background as to why they're on the train but this is all quickly forgotten & comes to absolutely nothing. I hated the lame ending as well & I don't know if I missed something but was any sort of reasonable explanation given as to why these three lamebrains would hijack a train? I don't think there was, was there? I'm sorry but because your angry at a prostitute is not enough of a reason, surely the filmmakers could have come up with something a bit more substantial & interesting if not more plausible. In my opinion this film stinks, it's as simple & straight forward as that I'm afraid.

Director Baldi does an OK job, to be fair he only has one corridor & a few train compartments to work with so I'll cut him some slack, having said that the film does become very repetitive. There is no style & he films the sex scenes like a bad soft core porno complete with awful romantic sounding piano music. There is NOT ONE SINGLE DROP OF BLOOD SPILT IN THE ENTIRE FILM, that's right not one single drop. Forget about any gore or violence as you'll be very disappointed if you do, like I did. There are a couple of rapes but they're amateurishly staged & have zero impact, the nasty exploitation & sleaze of say I Spit on Your Grave (1978) or The Last House on the Left (1972) is not here.

Technically La Ragazza del Vagone Letto is OK & it's quite well made on what must have been a low budget but the setting obviously helped keep the cost down to a minimum. The acting is poor as usual, although since it was dubbed the original performances have been lost. Fans of Italian horror will recognise a lot of the voices here.

La Ragazza del Vagone Letto is a terrible film, it's just my opinion but I was bored to tears waiting for something to happen & when it eventually never I felt cheated, I want those 80 minutes of my life back. This piece of crap isn't even fit to grace the 99p VHS bargain bin in your local Blockbuster, one to avoid.

Sex Train Going Nowhere

[Maciste_Brother · 2/10 · 7 July 2020]

Another super sleazy Italian movie. Three jerks cause mayhem to the pasengers. Their violent actions cause a cascading set of violent drama. One man decides to fight back against the three horny psychos. The most original aspect of this is the train has a full time hooker! It's filled with sex scenes, with nudity from the few young women and also the men. Remove the sex scenes and the movie's runtime is below one hour. The problem with this movie is that the bad guys are so annoying you really want them dead. The movie becomes almost unwatchable because of them. They're not fun. Just jerks.

Hard to believe that this was directed by Ferdinando Baldi who used to direct movies based on the Bible in the 1960s.

Fun cast adds to entertainment value in this Last House ripoff

[Aylmer · 8/10 · 16 October 2000]

I actually liked Terror Express quite a bit. It's a complete Last House ripoff set totally on a moving train with three miscast actors playing psychos raping and murdering passengers. Actually, the thought of Carlo De Mejo as a scummy sleazeball seemed quite amusing to me, and gay actor Werner Pochath seemed strangely convincing as a sexually frustrated ex-con. Venantini Venantini and Zora Kerova make a pretty hilarious couple, and Silvia Dionisio gets naked enough to please most fans. A few people who acted in BURIAL GROUND around the same time also pop by, including that Pauly Shore-lookin guy who kept saying "Give me some more Cartridges." Granted there's lots of rape scenes, sex, and general depravity, but the film is generally really slow going and lacking in action or violence. Funny things to watch for: Nick Alexander doing a dopey pseudo-British accent as the voice of the pimp/train conductor, and Carlo De Mejo, Zora Kerova, and some other guy making a "Sex Sandwich" while standing up naked in a cramped compartment. I never thought I'd see this! that's for sure!

I also noticed Marcello Giombini's musical score really sounded like a big ripoff of the musical score for THE WARRIORS, complete with all the little synthesized musical stings combined with shots of the train... Ferdinando Baldi's movies rock, I wonder why nobody really seems to give a c**p about his work. I really liked Viva Django, which actually topped the original in most ways, and this film is definitely worth checking out; granted it's no Hitch Hike.

"Now serving sleaze in the restaurant car..."

[Jonny_Numb · 5 January 2005]

As the other comments have made clear, "Terror Express" is another entry into the "Last House on the Left" subgenre that garnered some interest in the '70s and early '80s. When juxtaposed against the unflinching violence of LHotL, "Terror Express" is a mild affair, going instead for the more marketable fixture of steamy sex scenes (which are choreographed and paced in a manner to curb all boredom). Clocking in at around 80 minutes, the film doesn't waste much time with needless details, and instead gets right down to business (so to speak) as 3 smarmy thugs take over a compartment of an express train, inciting rapes and a few violent confrontations. The violence lacks the sadistic bite of LHotL and is more action-oriented. The cast plays like a "who's who?" of Italian gore veterans, from Zora Kerowa ("Make Them Die Slowly"/"New York Ripper"), Venantino Venantini ("City of the Living Dead"), Carlo de Mejo ("City of the Living Dead"), Fausto Lombardi ("Rats: Night of Terror"), and a bunch of actors from Andrea Bianchi's "Burial Ground" (no, not the creepy dwarf).

"Terror Express" ultimately amounts to highly entertaining, lowbrow trash. It looks as if everyone involved had a blast on the project, and this enthusiasm is infectious toward the viewer. Some of its stabs at social commentary are flat (and downright laughable), but honestly, who sees an exploitation flick of this nature for the writing?

Three sleazy clowns in a sleazy train

[andrabem · 8/10 · 12 January 2009]

If you're going to see this film expecting a thriller you will be disappointed. "La ragazza del vagone letto" (Terror Express), in a literal translation means "The girl of the sleeping car", a title that should already hint what "Terror Express" really is, namely a sleazy comedy. It was somewhat inspired by "Night train murders" by Aldo Lado, a very violent and suspenseful thriller. But "Terror Express" is not a real thriller. Call it, if you want, a sexual thriller.

The story runs like this: Three sleazy thugs board a night train. They succeed in isolating the wagon in which they are from the rest of the train and submit the passengers traveling there to all sort of humiliations; especially the women, that suffer harassment, "rape" etc.. They have a weird sense of humor and play their practical jokes on everybody.

Some of the passengers are:

A couple in crisis, they are always arguing and the beautiful wife is fed up with her husband.

A family – a man, his wife and his daughter. The man secretly lusts for his daughter but never fails to give her moral, admonitory lessons.

A policeman and his handcuffed prisoner.

And the wagon's whore that is in cohorts with the train conductor!

There are still other passengers, but I think that that's enough to give you a taste for pleasures to come.

The three guys that took over the wagon could be defined more as comedians than thugs. Their "violence" consists in jokes, threats (sometimes switchblades are shown) and their real aim seems to be to give as much pleasure as possible to the women that "fall into their clutches", but they can also be nasty clowns.

"Terror Express" is very sleazy and funny - a real sleaze merry-go-round. Now if you take the film at face value you won't like it. Take it as a sexy joke and that's your ticket. Silvia Dionisio, Zora Kerova and Fiammetta Flamini rock! Welcome aboard the sleaze train!

Pulling a train

[lazarillo · 20 December 2006]

This is a movie for people who don't find the infamous "Late Night Trains" sleazy enough for their taste. Actually though, this movie, while nowhere near as good, is a lot less disturbing than its more notorious cousin because it's just too ridiculous to take seriously. Silvia Dionisio plays the train prostitute. Why an overnight train really needs a prostitute I don't know, but she sure does a lot of business. There's also a criminal who is being transported by Interpol and ends up becoming the protagonist by default(perhaps this was inspired by the original "Assualt on Precinct 13"). The villains are three pathetic w*nkers who are far more annoying than scary. Anyone worth their salt could have beaten the hell out of these idiots and tossed them off the train with their flick-knives in their a***s, but these twits somehow manage to cow all the other passengers and have their way with them--usually sexually.

Sex is pretty much the name of the game here. Besides Dionisio doing what she does best, you have the equally infamous Zora Kerova as a passenger who willingly cheats on her boorish husband with one of the miscreants in the toilet but gets her comeuppance when one of the other guys barges in on them for some additional action (I guess the filmmakers saw "Straw Dogs" too). I don't know where they got the scene with the father who has incestuous designs on his own daughter and is forced to gamble with other male passengers for her virginity (I suppose this kind of sleaze could ONLY have come from Italy). He doesn't win, fortunately; the same sleaze bag who earlier raped Dionisio and Kerova gets the honors (you have to admire his stamina if nothing else). Still, like the rest of the movie of the movie, this scene would have been a lot more disturbing if the "virgin" in question wasn't being played by an actress who looks to be an aspiring porn starlet.

The violence and suspense on the other hand is almost nil. This is grade Z Italian sleaze in every sense of the word, but I guess if that is what you are looking for . . .

Sleaze express.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 8/10 · 15 April 2010]

The trio of sweaty jerks led by Werner Pochath decide to hold an entire train carriage hostage and sexually harass all sexy ladies there including Silvia Dioniso and Zera Kerova.Amongst the terrorised are a hooker,a couple of couples,some businessmen,a policeman and the criminal he has in cuffs."Terror Express" is not as nasty as "Late Night Trains" or "The House on the Edge of the Park",but it certainly delivers lots of sleaze.Truly a chock full of gratuitous sex scenes and a bucket load of nudity.There is even a carriage full of businessmen playing dice for the chance to deflower a teenage girl. Unfortunately the film fails as a rape and revenge shocker because there is not enough terror on board of "Terror Express".8 out of 10.A must-see for fans of sleazy exploitation cinema.