Hot Picks
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The Sleeping Car
USA 1989
produced by Douglas Curtis, Mark Amin (executive)
directed by Douglas Curtis
starring David Naughton, Julie Aronson, Kevin McCarthy, Jeff Conaway, Dani Minnick, Ernestine Mercer, John Carl Buechler, Gary Brockett, Steve Lundquist, Bill Stevenson, Michael Scott Bicknell, David Coburn, Nicole Hansen, Sandra Margot, Robert Ruth, Chalie Wicker, Lucy Bush
written by Greg Collins O'Neill, music by Ray Colcord, special makeup effects by John Carl Buechler
review by Dale Pierce
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A decent haunted house thriller (well haunted train car really) about David
Naughton and his rental of an apartment room made out of an old rail coach,
as he attends college. Throw in a creepy landlord and the ghost of her
husband, a railroad conductor erroneously blamed for a major train crash and
you have the makings of a very grim and even frightening plot. The ghosts get
added to by the time this film ends, and plenty of them. Only when Kevin
McCarthy emerges as a reclusive neighbor who happens to know about exorcisms,
put the spirits to rest, does the movie reach a grand climax. Special effects
and graphics are not too bad for a relatively low budget vehicle such as this
also and a couple of the murdered are so annoying, you are actually glad to
see them get knocked off.
David Naughton might not be considered a pure horror star in the line of a
Naschy, Karloff or Price, but he has had his share of films in this realm,
including some underrated ones, such as this. People in the genre will best
recall him as the unwilling wolfman in An American Werewolf In London, rather
than this production. Fans might also wish to check him out in the equally
obscure vampire tale, I, Desire.
Incredibly, this film has also been seen offered for sale on various train
sites and in the gift shops of various tourist railroads and museums within
the USA, as well as in video stores and in the horror realm. Guess the train
lovers like the idea of a story set in an old railroad car, even though it is
far from being a documentary on the New York Central, B&O or other things
which normally interest people cut from this bolt of cloth.
The conductor's ghost, indifferently called The Mister by his
wife, to the point of total annoyance, is creepy enough as well. Par for the
course, he is led to be alive by his wife/landlord, when of course he is
fertilizer and the key to the hauntings. No big surprise there.
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