I'm typically not one for history or nostalgia, but I do wish that I had been around during the late 60s and early 70s, when movie marketing was far more creative than it is today. Today, we get trailers and on-line campaigns, but in the past, promoters would do weird events in the theater and the trailers would basically dare you to see the movie. One of the most interesting thing which these "creative" people did was to show a movie in various places under various titles. The goal was to either mislead the audience or to get them to unknowingly pay to see the same movie twice. Often, foreign films would undergo a title change so as to appear to be sequels to American movies. That was the case with Second House on the Left, which isn't a sequel to Wes Craven's The Last House on the Left, but rather an Italian film also known as Night Train Murders.

In Night Train Murders, college students Lisa (Laura D'Angelo) and Margaret (Irene Miracle) leave Germany in order to spend Christmas vacation with Lisa's family. The train is very crowded and the girls are forced to stand in a corridor. Just as the train is about to leave the station, two young punks, Blackie (Flavio Bucci) and Curly (Gianfranco De Grassi), who have been ripping off people in the streets, jump on the train. These two run into Lisa and Margaret and begin to flirt, but the girls aren't interested. Meanwhile, a well-dressed lady (Macha Meril) does give in to Blackie's advances, showing that she's a bit weird. When the train must stop for an inspection, the girls worry that they will be late for meeting Lisa's parent. Therefore, they get on another train, which is nearly deserted. They are dismayed and frightened with Blackie, Curly, and the strange lady show up on the train. This bizarre trio trap Lisa and Margaret in their compartment and begin to assault them in awful ways. Thus begins a night of terror which will lead everyone on a road of doom.

I had never seen Night Train Murders until now, but when I read about it and heard that it had been marketed as a sequel to The Last House on the Left, I was skeptical. How could a movie set on a train be at all related to Wes Craven's film? But I was wrong, the movie is nearly a carbon copy of the 1972 classic...on a train. The movie takes nearly every idea from The Last House on the Left and does very little to change everything, even down to the fact that one of the girl's fathers is a doctor. The first 2/3 of the movie deals with the girls being tortured and the last 1/3 shows how Lisa's parents deal with the news that their daughter was assaulted. Other than the inclusion of the train there are few original ideas here. The only thing here that is the least bit interesting is the well-dressed woman, as her character is very unusual.

Lack of originality aside, this isn't a very well-made movie. The first few minutes are made up of a God-awful mellow song and endless amounts of random footage of people in the street. Once the movie moves to the train, we more get random footage of people. This all feels like pointless filler, because it is. The first half of the film is pretty dull, as we get little more than banal dialogue. Once the action moves to the other train, things begin to happen, but they aren't entertaining things. We sit and watch the girls verbally humiliated and physically assaulted by the thugs, but it's very unemotional. In The Last House on the Left, the violence is vulgar and shocking -- here, it just happens. In Craven's movie, the violence clearly isn't justified, but we understand that the assailants have been in prison and we understand that they are violent people. Here, Blackie and Curly are at first goofy, and then suddenly sadistic. The last reel is completely absurd and gives coincidence a bad name. The incessant harmonica music in the film is maddening. It works well as a device to let the girls know when Curly is nearby, but the fact that it continues is insane. The movie also contains goofs like a women receiving stitches on her leg while still wearing her stockings.

If a movie wants to be a rip-off, that's its business, but it should still try to be a good movie. Night Train Murders can't even get its name correct, as there's actually only one murder on the train. The movie is slow and mean, but never engaging. The brutality on the train is accompanied by two scenes in which people discuss violence and corruption in the world. This is meant to come off as a social statement, but it looks very silly in a movie which is clearly glorifying violence. The movie actually does have an interesting message about appearances, as the well-dressed woman is treated in a certain way due to the way she looks. However, it's unclear if this was intentional. Euro-trash completists may find something to like in Night Train Murders, but otherwise this is a re-tread of a much better film and one which will leave you cold.

Night Train Murders sees the death of yet another innocent Italian mannequin on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of Blue Underground. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 30 Mbps. Given that this is a nearly 40-year old European film, the transfer looks good. The image is sharp and clear, showing only trace amounts of grain and a few minute defects from the source material. The colors look very good, most notably reds and blues. The daytime scenes look very nice, while the nighttime scenes are just a tad dark. The level of detail is good and the depth is acceptable. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio 2-channel track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 2.0 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. Obviously we don't get any dynamic surround sound effects here, but the dialogue is clear and always audible. The annoying score comes through just fine and the train whistle sound effects noticeably move from side-to-side.

The Night Train Murders Blu-ray Disc contains only a few extras. "Riding the Night Train" (15 minutes) is an interview with Co-Writer/Director Aldo Lado. He immediately addresses the Last House on the Left connection and blames this on a producer who is now deceased and claims that he's never seen the movie. He does state that he wanted Night Train Murders to be a serious film with no comic relief. He then talks about the actors and the look of the film. We get the U.S. TRAILER (2 1/2 minutes), where the film is called "Last Stop on the Night Train", and the International TRAILER (4 minutes) (why are Euro trailers so long?). There are two RADIO SPOTS, each of which is 30 seconds. Here, the movie is called "New House on the Left". "Neighbors don't drop in, they drop dead." Finally, we have a POSTER & STILL GALLERY, which is a hoot. One of the posters makes the movie look like it's about a cult, and contains all kinds of weird names in the credits. One has a picture of David Hess from The Last House on the Left.