The Train of Death – 2024
The Train of Death or Kereta Berdarah as the original title is, is a horror film from Indonesia. I for one have little experience of films from this country of islands. I have seen very few films from there and the ones that come to mind are more cult films than anything qualitative. But soon dive into the action or the story at least. It opens up strong and I soon become very interested in what happened in the teaser and where this will lead us. But just as soon it becomes a bit dull and boring. Some workers disappear but we don’t get much info about it. It’s semi-offscreen at least.
We get to follow these two sisters who are taking a train ride to some famous resort Or at least someone who want to make it famous. There is obvious tension between the two siblings, but we don’t exactly know why yet. Something is not quite right but it’s hard to pinpoint what it is.
Tourist Trap
At the same time, the movie starts to focus on an investor trying to make the area into a tourist trap or something. There’s a lot of money going into the project and it’s also obvious that someone in charge of the actually on-site building is holding back on some details regarding the construction. We get more info later but as of now, that’s all we get. And it is enough, almost better I would say. That’s usually the case. It’s better with a mystery than with known facts. It tends to keep the suspense on a higher level lost times. And The Train of Death is also such a movie. There is a secret related to the teaser but we’re not told exactly what yet.
So, back to the train ride. There are five cars on the train, There are a few different classes too. I think there’s Economy, First, and VIP class. The further back in the train you come, the lower the cases. It makes sense really. Of course, in the VIP section, no cost is spared while the economy class is what it is. It’s just a normal train ride if you ask me. Not that I have traveled by train that many times in my time, at least not journies going for 7-8 hours. There are also five tunnels on the way from where they start to it’s destination. When they pass the first tunnel the last car also goes missing. When they pass the next tunnel another and so on. This was given in the description of the film and what made it interesting to begin with.
Chaos and Panic
I was thinking that it would develop The Train of Death to chaos and panic as people from the lower classes desperately tries to move forward on the train, where it gets more and more crowded. I’m not experiencing this panic though. On the other hand, there are characters that seem real and a development of the relationships between them. We get to know why the sister relationship is so strained since one of them is recovering from cancer. It’s a long story of course, but apparently she quit her medical treatment to spend her last days with her sister instead. There are some strong scenes here that absolutely find their way to my tear channels.
The acting is good, and very believable. Of course, it’s always hard to judge if the actors deliver the dialog realistically while it’s in a language you don’t know. But if they can get me to cry I guess their ability goes through the screen either way. I’m about halfway through the film and I’m starting to get my hopes up for a really emotional horror film. Not just gore and death. And there’s very little gore too. There’s a lot of death though but mostly of camera. There is some kind of demon or evil incarnate possessing the train and killing off the passengers one car at a time. It should be intense, but it really isn’t. I care about some of the characters but not all. Some get possessed and are driven to self-mutilation, others are just victims of being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Classic Disaster?
In the end, it seems to bear quite a bit of resemblance to a classic disaster movie. You know that kind where some building or dam is built but not taken all safety precautions into play. Which then turns it into a death trap when it collapses. We’ve seen water reservoirs break and buildings being on fire due to cheap construction, It’s not uncommon the this disaster movie subgenre. With that, I’m not saying The Train of Death is a pure disaster movie. It just uses some of the characteristics. Including some governmental person assuring that all is well just to make money out of it.
There are no winners in The Train of Death. Well, I guess that depends on from which view you see it. To me, it is just a descent into darkness. The darkest of darkness even. I think that is a good thing, The Western movie industry has gotten stuck in a preset formula and I’m glad we got a different idea here.
