In short: Iced (1988)

It’s the wild, wild 80s, a time of deadly hairspray fog and nauseating pastel colours, so is it any wonder that some rather crazy twat misunderstands the interest of lovely – it says so in the script – Trina (Debra De Liso) in him and skis himself to death when she prefers getting (very) naked in a hilarious sex scene with some other twit?

Four years later, Trina is actually married to the other guy. She and the rest of the gang of friends who took part in the sad affair are invited to some kind of test weekend that’s supposed to sell them a ski cabin. Then, a lot of nothing happens. Okay, there’s a murder – with awesome ski-mask-o-vision – none of the other characters witness, but that’s a minute of vague interest followed by what feels like a worthy arthouse film’s length of characters just babbling, some nudity (male and female, at least), some awkward attempts at suspense by paper note, and some coke snorting, followed by more babbling and the sort of seduction sequence that’ll make you run for the hills (hopefully to the dulcet sounds of Iron Maiden).

After ages of that stuff, the film suddenly remembers it’s supposed to be a slasher and packs four or five kills (you don’t expect me to remember how many characters actually were in the film, or to have taken notes on this one, I hope) into the space of ten minutes. It’s a bit of a shame, too, for the hectic series of killings is actually rather fun, with some choice murder methods (ski stick to the throat being the obvious winner), “tasteful” corpse nudity (always a sign of all kinds of good sense and a deep appreciation for human suffering on account of filmmakers) and other exciting extras. If that had been sprinkled throughout the rest of the film, perhaps with the help of some sort of “plot”, Iced might have gone down much better with me, which is to say, with less yawns. Be that as it may, once the killings are done, it’s off to a pretty fun(ny) scene of Trina finding the corpses of her friends and a final girl sequence that suggests our supposed heroine to be one of the worst final girls in a slasher.


One Jeff Kwitny directed the whole she-bang with some visible basic skill, and I have indeed seen much worse fourth tier slashers than this one. Hey, at least there’s a lot of snow on screen.

Amok Train (1989)

aka Death Train

aka Beyond the Door III (and in no way other than being produced by Ovidio Assonitis connected to the first two films, of course)

A group of US college students (I think) makes a trip to a picturesque, muddy, creepy Yugoslavian village to witness "an authentic Slavic ritual for only $800", as their teacher (who for some reason - cough - isn't joining them) explains. Obviously special among the students in that she possesses some character traits is Beverly Putnic (Mary Kohnert) who has Serbian parents herself. Beverly is shy, virginal, frequently mocked by her travelling companions, and, as the film will soon enough disclose, marked by a birthmark on her belly as the chosen bride of Lucifer.

And wouldn't you know it, Professor Andromolek (Bo Svenson), the Yugoslavian teacher who made all that ritual watching possible is the chief Satanist, with said "Slavic ritual" actually being Beverly's marriage to his boss, Satan. With a sideshow of college kid slaughter, of course, because nothing could be more romantic.

The Professor and his muddy village full of Satanists aren't very good at their job, though, it seems, for their attempt to murder Beverly's friends in their sleep only leads to most of the gang escaping their evil clutches onto a train that is surprisingly enough not populated by Satanists.

Alas, that auspicious circumstance notwithstanding, the train is soon enough under the control of supernatural forces that first gorily get rid of the train personnel, then leave behind two thirds of the train, turn the rest of it into a havoc causing vehicle of transportation bureau confusing dimensions, and then begin to slowly kill off our protagonists in awesome and improbable ways. Will anyone be able to ruin Lucifer's wedding?

By 1989, Italian horror films like this weren't actually made anymore, for budgets and public interest in the genre had dropped disturbingly. Fortunately, there are outliers to every rule, which leads us to Amok Train. This is nominally an Italian/American/Yugoslavian co-production, but the spirit the film was made in clearly belongs to Italy. Apart from director Jeff Kwitny (whoever he is), all important roles in the production are filled by staff experienced in the ways of the Italian genre cinema industry, and it's all dubbed into the dubious and slightly loopy English we know and love from Italian productions.

But what makes Amok Train a movie worth gushing about isn't that it's a dream-like and wonderfully gory Italian horror movie made this late in the game, it's that it's one that does everything one could hope for so well. There's hardly a minute going by when nothing interesting, loopy or slightly crazy is happening with a scene in which our heroine has a vision of her dead mother, hairless and in white body paint and a goat between her legs (it's a metaphor, don't you know?), and the ickiest kiss scene - with a few worms, of course - I have seen in a long time as only two of the film's highpoints. Amok Train delights with toothless witches and a polite chief Satanist who dresses like Dracula, a monk who plays a flute that sounds like a synthesizer, an especially long-winded set-up for the strangest death by train I can remember seeing (watch out, that train's amphibian!), and more wonders than I can count.

I was also very impressed by finally having found a film that thinks of the simple solution to the problem of being the virgin Lucifer wants to marry - just have consensual sex with the ghost of a Saint from the 11th Century, and that rather picky Satanic gentleman will not want to have anything further to do with you, the hypocrite.

And all this are the glories Amok Train provides without me even having mentioned the half an hour or so when the gory horror movie grows a parallel plot right out of a disaster movie as if it were an evil twin, with very dramatic Yugoslavian officials trying desperately to hinder the train of evil from crashing head-on into a more standard train. I think even George Kennedy would have had trouble coping with an AMOK TRAIN that doesn't need rails, so it's probably better for man and myth neither he nor Chuckie Heston are in this wonderful piece of art. The film is overwhelmingly fantastic as it is already anyway.

 

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