User reviews

Forget about the unrelated title "Beyond the Door III", as its better represented under "Death Train" or "Amok Train". What starts off as an optimistically ominous Italian supernatural occult feature eventually falls into cheesy and senseless absurdness, but even so it manages to stay reasonably diverting. The premise's opening build up is atmospheric, spooky and alienating, but when the staged action hit's the train it becomes ludicrously brainless. Forget about making any sense of it (yep it's strange and baffling), and just go along for the unpredictable, but farcical train ride of 'doom'. Director Jeff Kwitny uses the creepy, louring, out-cast East European environment to great effect, and ups the tatty, macabre gore effects when it counted. He plasters it with cheap shocks, but the outrageously graphic deaths are amusingly inventive and impulsive. There are some memorable ones too. An inane script and wishy-washy story is made up of frantic ideas, and novelties that never really seem to come together, but at least it stays in character by keeping the story moving like a speeding train. Some sequences involving the run-away train (that's ritually controlled by Satanists) are balefully destructive, but other times you get a good laugh when the miniature train model comes into play. Adolfo Bartou's sweepingly agile and large scale cinematography is very well-implemented, and at times looked to good for such a production. Telegraphing nearly everything is the pounding, dread-induced music score of generically leering and terrible cues. The performances are pretty wretched, but Bo Svenson's little screen time makes an impression.

Alternatively known as Death Train, this horror flick really show amateur qualities, whether script ("write as you go" dialogue is unbelievably bad) directing, whatever. The film does retain a wide intrigued curiosity of story, and the graphic violence has a style, yet plot is muddled (really hard to follow), which is really the film's problem, if done at a rushed effort. Supposedly the story is of a group of lucky American students who go to Europe to witness a ritual, where the virgin girl of the group, unawares she's just lost her mother in a horrific and cruel car accident, is being set up in a sacrifice, where she must lose her virginity quick, as a slightly creepy Russian satanist (veteran Bo Svenson- the best performance I've seen out of the guy) attains her. When all escaping, they board the train, which turns out to be the one from hell, like that death ship, that brought evil and death. As only seeing the film a few times, the last time, only the other day, I didn't realize how gory this film was, most of it, thanks to that notorious killer train. You don't give two hoots about any of the characters except, our virgin a little, and her peers who seem to taunt her and cast her out, doesn't help their likability status. But amidst the sloppiness of the film, this forgettable flick still rises above this and it's other painfully palpable faults, which will warrant some more views in the future, but again Svenson, the show stealer, is fantastic.

Sometimes you stumble over those kind of movies where the main and haunting question is - what the heck did the writer(s) smoke!? Beyond the Door III aka Amok Train aka Death Train is such a movie. What we get is some ancient satanic ritual in a rural community of Yugoslavia mixed with a good part of what is some kind of early and low budget Unstoppable (Denzel Washington, Chris Pine, 2010) - in one scene the runaway (demon-possessed!?) train even drives thru a small lake without any railway tracks just to kill some of the poor Americans! But on the other side we get a fine sniff of gore here and there and some well composed dark and weird mood including some satanic ritual (just too delicious the scene where the old witch screams: she's not a ******!) and some fine visuals (for a B-movie).

My rate would be a straight 5 but for the smoking question I add 1 more - so my overall rate is a well-deserved 6.

Third entry in the series of films that have nothing to do with each other. The original title for this one is Amok Train, though it's better known as Beyond the Door III. It involves a group of college students heading to Yugoslavia. Once there, it is revealed that the virgin of the group, Beverly, is intended to be the bride of the devil.

This is a really bad movie with some truly lousy gore scenes. The deaths themselves are creative enough, but the effects are terrible, several of them using blatantly obvious dummy heads. The characters are also an unlikable bunch who treat Beverly poorly for no good reason. They also never seem to much care when something otherworldly happens. One guy kisses his possessed girlfriend and gets a mouth full of maggots in the process. The girl then proceeds to rip her face off right in front of him, but the guy never mentions it and acts as if it didn't happen. We also get some hilarious scenes of the titular train going off the rails, all done with very bad miniature work.

This one's for those who like to laugh at bad movies. Anyone else should avoid. Funnily enough, it's still the most watchable film in this series of unrelated Euro flicks.

Let's see what's beyond door number three. Surprise! It's a truckload of Italian-produced 80's horror cheese! The "official" title Beyond the Door III is completely irrelevant and probably just chosen because the film remotely involves some itty-bitty parts of satanic possession and because the infamous Ovidio G. Assonitis – director of the original Beyond the Door (a nitwit "Exorcist" rip-off) pumped extra money into this as an executive producer. Speaking of him, usually you should beware of any horror production that proudly depicts Assonitis' name during the opening credits. Remember "Tentacles", "Ator the Iron Warrior" and "Piranha II"? But "Amok Train", the much more apt title, is actually a vastly entertaining movie as long as you keep your expectations really low. During the first five minutes already, we're treated to eerie images of black-cloaked Satanists performing a weird ritual; a randomly gratuitous boobs shot and someone losing her head in a tragic car accident when a steel bar crushes through the front window. Well then, how bad can an 80's horror movie possibly be? Even after the promising opening minutes, "Amok Train" remains a fast-paced and hugely amusing little flick, albeit one that makes absolutely no sense and contains more crazy twists and absurd situations than you could ever imagine. A group of Californian high school students has the privilege of traveling to Yugoslavia, to study the local history with the eminent Professor Andromolek. The whole trip turns out to be a giant lie, as the Professor is part of a satanic sect and they're exclusively interested in young Beverly because she's the "chosen" virgin to wed Satan himself. Beverly and her classmates manage to escape and jump on an old train hoping to escape. From then on, the movie literally turns into a derailed – in every possible meaning of the term – adventure with nonsensical twists, extreme cheese and spontaneously random death scenes. Dark powers turn the train into an unstoppable instrument of the devil driving through water and over land without rails. The opening scenes in the little Yugoslavian villages are atmospheric and actually evoke a handful of real scares. Nearly two decades prior to Eli Roth, the creators of this little flick already realized that the population in East European countries look uncanny and that it's a terribly dangerous place for American teenagers to travel to. The middle section, however, is just sheer cheesy nonsense with a handful of awesome gore moments, hysterically screaming co-eds and stupid dialogs.

If you enjoy hilariously awful occult movies, then this might be entertainment for you. Magnificently incompetent on every level, this film features some truly absurd special effects, awkward and amateur acting, clumsy dialogue, and a very disjointed narrative. You know that common sense was left by the wayside in the first 5 minutes, when a loose construction beam on a forward-moving truck flies backward at a sudden stop. Given the theft from better movies (Terror Train, Horror Express, etc.), the mumbo jumbo here could have at least relied on a suspenseful story. But we know well in advance the final stop for this steaming cinematic movement, with the ending telegraphed at least an hour before.

Amok Train ( a far better title) tells the tale of a group of American students on a study trip in Serbia who are first terrorized by an evil village, and then by a runaway train they they attempt to escape on. It's all because one of the students is a "chosen one" of a group of devil worshippers.

The film has so much going on, it's never boring, even if some of the story and acting are a bit hokey, there are always plenty of things to look at and some outrageous gore is showcased, including a face being pulled off, decapitations, impalements galore, and quite a shocking dismemberment of one poor guy caught between moving carriages.

Actually some of the most frightening scenes of the movie are those depicting the actors being filmed on the moving train. We see them running alongside and jumping aboard, clambering over the top of it, hanging off the sides and dangling between the couplings - all while the train is clearly moving at some speed. I don't know how they filmed all of this, it looks completely hair-raising. If these are faked via special effects, then I take my hat off in admiration.

There are some rather shonky miniature models that spoil some of the tension, but the movie is otherwise beautifully photographed, and the music is great too. It's bursting with energy and great visuals, reminiscent of Lamberto Bava's "Demons" , and the more obscure "Spider Labyrinth", so if you have seen and enjoyed either of those, and can suspend your criticisms, you'll have fun with this.

"Beyond the Door 3" is a pathetic trash.The acting is horrendous,the script is putrid and the music is awful.Absolutely no suspense,no atmosphere,just boring,meaningless c*** OK,there are some good gore bits for example one guy is cut in half by a chain,but the film isn't very bloody,so gore-hounds will be disappointed.The ending is one of the worst ever.The special effects rank from acceptable to totally fake.I'm a big horror fan and I really couldn't appreciate this one.To sum up,"Beyond the Door 3" is okay to laugh at with friends,but good luck sitting through this twice.Don't waste your precious time unless you like really bad horror movies.Not recommended.

Traveling to Yugoslavia for their studies, classmates learn about a pagan ritual and are taken to a performance but when they discover foul play, they manage to escape onto a train where they realize the train is to deliver one of the students back to a congregation of devil worshipers and race to get off the train to safety.

This is a wonderfully fun and entertaining film. A lot of the film's positives are due to how cheesy the film is. That is mostly from the overall setup of how they're lured over to the village and seeing the preparations of the ceremony that takes place which allows for this one to let it be known early on that they're shifty and shady. The resulting trap in the fire-filled huts the next morning is no surprise and features some thrilling moments as they escape their trapped rooms. Their eventual escape from the village has some fun moments as well so even though the film is about the preparations of a demonic cult to get at them, most of the film is set on a train. That makes for some really cheesy action to be had. That itself is the best feature of the film with a huge slew of action scenes that really get the film going along. From the numerous scenes of the train jumping the tracks but still going to the carnage inside the train and the various supernatural antics depicting the influence over the train, these are all great and have a nice atmosphere to the film. The continuous amount of time that it jumps the tracks are quite fun and cheesy as there's a sense of joy to be had when watching a train jumping the tracks and going through a wooded area or a soggy marshland and keeps going. These are just good cheesy fun, and the film is packed with them. This even gets better with all the different attempts to stop it come up with different action moments here. From the military blockade that fails spectacularly to the attempts at blowing it up and all the outside forces' attempts, this really racks up those moments and does it well. The finale, where the cult gets a hold of the patient and it all goes up in smoke, does have some really good action moments as the clacking rocks and visuals during the abrupt ceremony are creepy and chilling that which has a lot to like. Aside from that, there's also the high amount of kills around the train which is great and are also really bloody ones to be had. These here really make up the film as this one had very little wrong with it. The main flaw is that the cult has very little screen-time. After the opening, they aren't brought up again, and that is slightly strange due to the film taking up so much time on the train, which takes away from the cult. They have the possibility to be creepy, but there's no time spent with them to get that way. The film's cheesiness is also something to deal with, especially when it's so obvious that models are used for the scenes where a stunt-train is needed. Those really keep the film down.

Rated R: Graphic Violence, Language and Brief Nudity.

Having now watched all three BEYOND THE DOOR films, I can say that not only are they entirely unrelated one to the other but they are all of equally mediocre quality (this does, however, retain Ovidio G. Assonitis and Roberto D'Ettorre Piazzoli from the first entry among its credentials). Coming so long after the others, one can see how much the "Euro-Cult" style had been degraded by this point: here, we only have Bo Svenson and Victoria Zinny (from Luis Bunuel's VIRIDAIANA {1961}!) for mildly familiar presences and both do not figure in it all that much!

Anyway, we have a mix of typical scenarios here: stranded teenagers as splatter-fodder (which can be pretty inventive at times but also demonstrates a baffling penchant for decapitation and gut-busting!), a virgin destined to be mated with Satan (her mother appears to her after death as a head-shaven disciple who unleashes a baby dragon from between her legs!), and even the driverless train (being an Italian-Yugoslavian-U.S. co-production, both the Italian title – which translates to THE TRAIN! – and the alternate monikers, AMOK, AMOK TRAIN and DEATH TRAIN, relate to the latter plot strand which, in fact, occupies much of the running-time). Oddly enough, a fair share of the dialogue, describing the progress of the runaway train along its various checkpoints along the tracks, comes in untranslated Serbian (and I wonder now how it was presented in the Italian-language version which I also have a copy of somewhere – but I opted to go with the English print in view of the fact that the director is not Italian: I'm not sure about scriptwriter Sheila Goldberg, though, since she has worked on a number of other latter-day "Euro-Cult" efforts).

Anyway, by contriving to do away with almost the entire principal cast before the finale (including a local self-reliant female thief the group encounters on the train and who plans to blow it all up), the film offers little surprises throughout. While Svenson is obviously evil since he sports a Captain Beefheart-type goatee and immediately takes a more than casual interest in the heroine (who has several ties to the foreign land she is visiting, not least a birthmark on her chest which is the tell-tale sign of her being the chosen one for the ultimate dubious honor of breeding the Devil's spawn), we also get a blind fortune-telling witch who shows up to cackle maniacally from time to time. On the other hand, there is a shady, silent and flute-playing hooded figure on the train who may or may not be an envoy of Evil – at the very end, we are told he is a real-life monk who was burned alive for practicing witchcraft but then had his accusations retracted and eventually sanctified as a most pious man(!), and what he does here is spoil the Satanic party by...er...despoiling the heroine (talk of perverting the Church's dogma for the common good!) so that the talon-sporting and monstrous-looking Devil (propped all the while SPINAL TAP-like inside a glass cage eagerly awaiting to get in on the action) cannot touch her and instantly blows (or, more precisely, fizzes) up upon learning the truth, though not before venting his wrath upon the understandably baffled Svenson.

The last scene takes care to provide one final frisson as the girl receives an unexpected visit from her 'intended' on the flight back to the States but, of course, it turns out to be just a dream and all is really rosy for her (and, it goes without saying, safe for the rest of us as well). The end result, then, is not quite as bad as I had been expecting – but, in the long run, it does little more than reaffirm the sad state to which Horror (and "Euro-Cult" in particular) has faltered, and from which there is little sensible hope of recuperating...

Everyone who gave this movie a bad review is fired from EVER reviewing a b-horror movie again. There are two kinds of horror movies...There are the ones such as THE EXORCIST and HALLOWEEN which, for whatever reason, have mass appeal. And then there're the ones like BEYOND THE DOOR 3, obscure low budget oddities which suddenly appear on video store new release walls with a no-name cast and crew and really nothing to recommend them other than a really neat cover box. They're usually made on a shoestring budget with plots recycled from other movies. But they have only one goal and that is to entertain. And BEYOND THE DOOR 3 certainly succeeds in that area. I've seen this little gem of a flick more than a dozen times and I'm thoroughly entertained each time. To hell with characterizations and plodding plot devices, this little flick wants to entertain and scare you, and it does! When you rent a movie like BEYOND THE DOOR 3 you should have some idea of what's in store for you. Especially since it's a part 3 so you're renting it having probably seen the first two installments. So you shouldn't be disappointed because it's too cheesy or flatly directed, etc. That's what fans of these types of movies want. So shame on everyone who watched this movie and was disappointed. Go watch MATLOCK with Grandma, you sissies.

Set in Eastern Europe, this movie about a group of young people trapped in a demonic, bloodthirsty train is an utter disappointment. The effects are very bad, even though there is some gore, and the story is stupid. The train runs amok and relentlessly takes on any obstacles there are - it runs on and off the tracks, plows through fields and woods (without derailing!), runs through lakes and swamps (without sinking!!) and crashes through trucks parked across the tracks (without exploding !!!). One by one the innocent youngsters aboard the train die a horrible death, from being decapitated, speared by splintered signal poles, or torn in halves by iron chains connecting the railway cars. At the end the seemingly unstoppable train is being stopped by a bomb made of black powder from two dozen shotgun shells! I mean...come on, folks! How stupid can a horror movie get? Well, if you want to find out, watch this one. Or I'd rather you don't. Cause it's not worth your while. It's a waste of time. There are better things to do with your time - and if you must, then watch any other Horror movie but this one... Jasper P. Morgan

Starting out. A truck comes to a complete stop and the rails of steel shoot not forward from the stop of force but jets out backward!!!! No lie.... The director evidently knows nothing about elementary laws physics. Haha. Then........... a tour guide says "you'll watch a play that was made 2,000 years ago" "Student Says "how can you have a play about Christ that predates before Christ was even born?" The professor replies "good question ". What the heck? Christ birth was 2500 years ago it's BC and AD. Lol. These two things are in the first 10 minutes of the movie for Pete's sake. Haha Like I said in the description damn on another kind of level.

If you haven't seen the other two Beyond the Door movies, never fear because this movie hasn't got anything to do with them. There are supernatural happenings and many of the sets have doors, so I guess that's the only requirement to be a part of this series.

This time, we have the world's surliest teenager (seriously, why is she so angry?) who goes on a class trip with her classmates to Yugoslavia and finds out that she's about to be the virgin sacrifice for a weirdo cult. Fleeing to their safety on a train, their terror has just begun as strange things start trying to kill her and her classmates.

Take Rosemary's Baby, throw in a bit of Final Destination, and a few generous helpings of The Wicker Man and drizzle it with tons of gore and you might have some idea of what to expect with Beyond the Door III. It's borderline nonsensical at times, hoping from subgenre to subgenre with surprising dexterity. If you're not feeling the cult aspects, just wait it out, because the Final Destination/Omen style kills might be more to your liking.

Beyond the Door III is beyond idiotic, but you can never accuse it of not providing a good time.

When I sat down here in 2024 to watch the 1989 horror movie "Il Treno" (aka "Beyond the Door III"), I had never actually heard about it. But with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch the movie.

Writer Sheila Goldberg put together a script and storyline that felt rather erratic. The narrative was lacking a clearly coherent red thread, and that made for a somewhat disjointed movie to sit through, as the scenes felt rather random. And I have to admit that it was a bit of a struggle to sit through the movie in its entire 94 minute runtime, yet I managed to do so.

The movie would have ended so quickly if the young people just opted to get off the train. But no, instead they displayed zero degrees of intelligence as they clung to the train and died in various ways.

Of the entire cast ensemble in the movie, I was only familiar with actor Bo Svenson. I will say that the acting performances in the movie were actually fair.

There were a surprising amount of decapitations throughout the movie. Not that I mind that, because it was actually not too shabbily made. In fact, I will say that the special effects in the movie were fair. Well, aside from the scene where the train tracks dislocated and the train was derailed, because it was painfully obvious to see that it was model train tracks and a model train.

"Il Treno" was not an outstanding horror movie experience, and it certainly haven't spurred me to go out and track down parts I and II. Nor is it a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time, nor a movie that I would recommend to fans of the horror genre.

My rating of director Jeff Kwitny's 1989 movie lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Nothing in this makes any sense, but when it's delivered with such joy, it's hard not to enjoy every silly second of it. Once again, this is one of those so-called sequels that has nothing to do with the previous films and seems to be renamed to cash in on the previous two films. Instead of demonic possession, you've got crazy trains and creepy cults that need a virgin to complete some sort of ritual. Some of the death scenes have a nice Omen quality to them and there's plenty of gore to go around.

Ok, students get tricked to go on an overseas excursion and end up escaping from the place they have been sent because it was a set up. They escape on a train where various nasty deaths occur. This is the only reason to watch the movie from a horror movie fans stand point because the rest is pure nonsense.

You have to watch this movie considerably sped up because its pacing is too slow. When viewed sped up as a short its not bad mostly because almost all of the death sequences are in slow motion anyhow so it works perfectly. You speed through the rubbish and see the good bits at normal speed. Also the lack of dialog helps this case considerably.

Most of the movie ends up being based around an unstoppable possessed train. Bizarre but also considerably entertaining. It's actually difficult to point to a favorite death but I'll go with the stake in the guts to the guy hanging on to the side of the train at around the 1:12:00 mark, the accompanying sound effect was quite brutal.

I won't say how it ends but I will say it is quite a ride just don't expect dialog as I said. As for the occult stuff, meh.

Grab some beer, some friends, and watch this movie with low expectations in your heart.

Don't read the spoilers, just grab a seat and let this movie take you to your giggly destination!