This is Do Not Get on That Train week. The rather obviously named Train is currently available on instant Netflix.

AVOID: Train (2008) – Rated R for strong grisly, bloody violence, disturbing images, sexual content and language.

“College athlete Alex (Thora Birch) and her teammates are in for one hell of a ride when, after a night of heavy partying, they miss a train to their next meet in Europe and unwittingly accept alternate transport from a stranger — with deadly consequences. The international gore-fest from director Gideon Raff (The Killing Floor) was shot in Bulgaria and takes bloody inspiration from a rash of news reports about real crimes in Eastern Europe.”

“America where are you going to in the middle of the fun?”

Bizarrely this movie was originally to be a remake of Terror Train (1980). That is not bizarre as they have remade pretty much every other popular 80s slasher at this point. The bizarre part is that that idea was jettisoned and they did not even try to retain the title (except in Japan where it is called Terror Train).

Well they sure want you to know what kind of a movie you are getting into. Not even a minute into the film and they are graphically showing people being carved up. There is absolutely no context for this – you cannot even tell what you are seeing. I guess they want people to think that this is Hostel.

They intersperse the gore with a few (unrelated?) shots of a train so that you know that this is not Hostel.

After that we are introduced to our Indiana wrestling team somewhere in Europe (do not ask). They sneak out of their hotel room at night to go to the requisite rave I mean party. Cue standard euro rave montage and so that we know that this movie is hip, the rave montage segues into a sex club montage. Wait this must be Hostel.

Two of the young men are led off by young ladies (strangely we do not get any good look at them) – Yup this is definitely Hostel.

When they finally board the train, two of the bad guys ask for their passports. How do we know they are the bad guys? Because they have BAD TEETH! If Hollywood has taught us anything, it is that the sight of bad teeth always announces the presence of the minor villains. Wait that is just like Hostel.

We have a character that points out that pain can be fun. This is definitely Hostel.

The sinister Europeans spend the rest of the film torturing the stupid American tourists. I officially rename this movie Hostel 3: The Revenge of Turistas.

Oh wait I did not mention the part where they were doing all of this to harvest organs. Perhaps that is because this is the dirtiest, most inept medical operation in cinematic history.

Train is both written and directed by Gideon Raff. I am going to have to say that written is way too strong a word. It appears to be simply a series of random scenes strung together.

For instance after the bad teeth bad guys get the passports, they burn them. That is ridiculous on many levels – they plan to kill all of the Americans so getting their passports afterwards should not really be an issue. Presumably they are doing this for money – I imagine passports would fetch a decent sum of cash. If you want to say that the villains are being prudent then check out the scene 44 minutes in where one of our victims discovers a drawer full of passports. Did Raff forget the scene that he had written (and directed) earlier?

The villains have an opportunity to grab one of the men so they do. They then have an extremely similar opportunity to grab Alex (Thora Birch). Since she is the main character they do not do that. Huh?

The train cars are all quite modern with at least two dining cars. When one of our victims, dressed only in his tighty-whities – do not ask!, runs past these cars on a dare, he comes across a really ramshackle car that just happens to have a nail sticking out of the floor. Why? Because Raff wrote it into the script.

Alex gets a knife at one point. Later she stumbles backwards (for no reasonable reason – this is long after she has discovered what is going on) and drops the knife. She notices that she has dropped the knife and leaves without it anyway even though no one is chasing her. The villain she was backing away from is busy carting off her friend.

Raff writes that event into the script because it is important that Alex not be armed in her very next scene.

One of our male characters has pierced nipples. What are the odds that someone will rip those off during the course of the film? Hint – darn near 100%.

They need a heart. Rather than put the unwilling (and of course unsedated) donor on the medical table (which they have), they seat him in a chair, power saw his chest open, and yank that puppy out. The medical table is reserved for the attempted rape scene – I swear I am not making this up.

They have cages to keep the live donors to be and yet for no apparent reason, they hook a woman through her jaw and hang her up. Why? Because Raff wrote it into the script.

Thora Birch is trying to be stealthy and hide from everyone while the train is stopped and the military is looking around (again do not ask). She is show very clearly at the window of the train looking horrified. Why? Because it makes a good visual shot even if it makes no logical sense.

This is all in the first two-thirds of the movie. Thankfully Alex finds a change of clothes (yes a complete change of clothes but of course absolutely NOTHING she can use as a weapon) and suddenly she is not only European but invisible and wanders the cars at will.

She opens a container that she earlier saw a heart being put into. Why? She already knows what is in it – at any rate she knows that there is not going to be a gun in there.

While I typically refrain from discussing events that happen in the third act to avoid spoilers, trust me when I say that there is just as much stupidity on display there as there was in the first two acts. In fact I would go so far as to say that the third act is even stupider and more unbelievable than the first two.

The Tag line for Train is Next Stop: Hell. Be advised – get off now while you still can.

People Watch: Thora Birch apparently got a role for her brother Bolt. He plays Monk 1.