Two teen aged girls, one German (Irene Miracle) and one Italian (Laura D'Angelo) are travelling across Europe by train when they encounter two thieves, Blackie (Flavio Bucci) and Curly (Gianfranco De Grassi). The two thieves initially have a rascally charm about them, but later, spurred on by an alluring and extremely twisted mystery lady (Macha Meril), as well as a little heroin shooting, the trio proceed to torture these poor girls psychologically and sexually, with an unhappy ending for both of them. Eventually, they find shelter with the parents, and the dad becomes filled with homicidal rage when he realizes what has happened. If all of this sounds like Wes Craven's "The Last House on the Left", you'd be dead on. In fact, two of the alternate titles for this Italian spin on the tale are "Second House on the Left" and "New House on the Left". (Craven himself, of course, having been inspired by the Bergman classic "The Virgin Spring".) But whatever this movie lacks in originality, it makes up for with its own unrelentingly seedy and disturbing mood. For its first half, it maintains a fairly light approach (some viewers may find their patience tested a bit), and takes its utterly dramatic turn after the Meril character has had her way, which gives "Night Train Murders" a particularly twisted touch with the primary instigator being a female. For as long as poor Miracle and D'Angelo are victimized, the atmosphere and sense of danger are thick and heavy, and the lighting extremely moody. The actors all do a fine job, especially the luscious Meril in the central, most potent role. Unlike "The Last House on the Left", the makers of this movie refuse to give us a cut and dried type of ending, daring to prevent their viewers from a feeling of real satisfaction. Overall, their movie is genuinely uncomfortable, compelling stuff that can't be ignored. With its striking cinematography by Gabor Pogany and the haunting music by the always dependable Ennio Morricone, "Night Train Murders" is the kind of thing where one may likely want to look away, as it shows some of the darkest aspects of human nature, demonstrating that they can exist inside the supposedly more "respectable" members of society who in the end can be no better than the dregs, and doesn't cut away. Seven out of 10.

Lisa and Margaret are two sweet, if less than innocent teenagers taking a train ride across the European countryside on Christmas Eve. The unlucky pair run afoul of a couple of vicious sleazy thugs and an icy cold wealthy woman on board the train who proceed to rape, torment, debase and eventually murder poor Lisa and Margaret. Director/co-writer Aldo Lado wrings plenty of gut-wrenching claustrophobic tension from the edgy, unsettling story, adroitly creates a gritty, threatening atmosphere rife with sadism and perversion, addresses the troubling issue of random everyday gratuitous violence with truly jolting results, and delivers a few savagely powerful moments of startling brutality (the sequence where the virginal Lisa gets gruesomely violated with a knife is especially ugly and upsetting). The performances are uniformly excellent: Irene Miracle and Laura D'Angelo make for very attractive and appealing fair damsels in distress while Flavio Bucci and Gianfranco De Grassi are frightfully credible and disgusting as the greasy low-life criminal villains who are memorably first seen in the picture beating up a sidewalk Santa for his money. But top acting honors clearly go to the strikingly lovely blonde Macha Meril, who gives a positively chilling portrayal of the cruel, haughty rich bitch who gladly joins in on the hoodlum's ferocious degradation of Lisa and Margaret. Gabor Pogany's slick, handsome cinematography works wonders with the tightly confined setting while the great Ennio Morricone supplies a typically haunting, throbbing and melodic score. Demis Roussos' beautiful ballad "A Flower Is All You Need" is used as an achingly ironic bookend for all the harsh barbarism. A nice'n'nasty Euroslime exploitation thriller.

Anyone who has seen Last House on the Left doesn't need to bother with this film. LHOTL was taken (admittedly) from Ingmar Bergman's film Virgin Spring.The plot in that film was an old Swedish folk legend about a girl who is raped and killed by three highwaymen. The highwaymen then end up having to stay at the girl's parents' place. The parents notice that one of the murderers has a personal effect of their daughter's, and the father enacts his revenge on them for the murder.Night Train Murders was taken from LHOTL (so they're both really ripping off the Swedes). LHOTL does it much better and keeps it relatively artistic. I didn't like this film that much. Here, they keep the two girl formula used in Last House, but has them traveling on a night train from Munich to Italy to visit one girl's parents for Christmas. The killers are two street thugs and a sadistic woman that they hook up with on the train. The girls switch trains in Austria and so do these folks. If you've seen Virgin Spring or Last House, you know what will happen.It seems to try to keep the shock value up, but doesn't deliver highly on the watchability. The first half is rather boring (it tries to set up what is going on, but is really more trouble than it's worth). Granted, there is some sadism, sex and violence, but it's not that shocking or really necessary. Last House was considered to be very shocking when it came out. This film seemed to be playing off of that success and throw in some more shocking things. This formula didn't make it good, or even enjoyable. It seems like they were just shocking to be shocking.Don't waste your time.

Laura and her friend Irene are travelling back to Italy on the overnight train from Munich for Christmas, also on board are two pickpockets Curly a heroin addict and Blackie on the run from the German police for mugging Santa Claus…HOHOHO!. All seems well on the over crowed train and the girls kick up a rapport with the boys and help them avoid the ticket collector, Macha Méril plays a seemingly respectable lady passenger content to discuss social issues with other seemingly respectable passengers until that is she meets Blackie in a toilet where he forces himself on her meeting little resistance, and after an unprovoked attack on another passenger by the two boys she seems hooked on the seedier side of life.The train is stopped in a deserted station after the police receive threats that there is a bomb on board…The two girls see this as there chance to rid themselves of the troublesome boys and as luck would have it there is a direct train leaving shortly for there home town. The girls enjoy a candlelit lunch on board the dark and cold train which is lit only with a blue light, they seem relaxed until they realize the boys have also jumped trains with their lady friend in tow. The trio force themselves into the girls compartment where they subject them to demeaning sexual acts which go a little too far resulting in one of the girls being killed in a hideous manner,the other fleeing half naked jumps from the moving train as she is chased by the two boys,she falls to her death. Laura's parents await her arrival at the train station but the only people there are the murdering trio, who seek assistance from Laura's father as he is a doctor and the lady passenger has an injured leg that requires treatment.The trio return to Laura's house where they rest up and have dinner,unaware of who's house they are in. The parents become suspicious of the boys and after they hear that two girls bodies have been found beside the railway line, Laura's father seeks revenge on the boys, whom he dispatches in a very bloody way, the respectable lady escapes scott free pleading innocence. A very gritty film that rips off Last House on the lefts idea of revenge, although Lado claims he hadn't seen it at the time. Lado's film is supposed to an indictment on violence and other social issues and to be fair he doesn't show too much gore and also doesn't resort to unneeded nudity, while I found the film interesting there wasn't enough tension for me….maybe it was down to Lado's laid back way of telling the story which was very matter of fact. Exploitation fans will probably love it.