I probably should have known this was going to be, or at least akin to being, "torture porn", or the gratuitous slicing and dicing of people without any of the suspense, but I didn't expect this low-rent movie starring Thora Birch to be just so unpleasant, in its style and mood and its delivery. It doesn't help that the cast mostly looks like the understudies of other actors (that one guy is a dead ringer for Denis Leary, another one for European Cameron Diaz) and none of them can act very well (Birch, of course, being a master thespian of under-acting if that's possible). But any moment that a suspenseful walking/creeping around should work it doesn't, and any moment that we're supposed to be icked or frightened by the next gashing-out of blood is just stupid in its excessiveness.

It also doesn't help at all that the logic is twisted; there's a train that kidnaps unwitting people into using their bodies on the black market, okay, I'll bite, maybe it's like Taken on a Train (ho-ho). Even then there's little thought put into it; they're organ-removers basically- a little like the people in Hostel only providing a "service" albeit extremely criminal and psychopathic and with some of the usual big galuts in tandem. But what about what's usually done with organ removing and transplanting like, I don't know, a CLEAN ROOM! It's one thing to be evil East-Euro organ removers, it's another thing to be incompetent while doing it.

Also, the ending is one of the lamest in modern cinematic memory, even if it's straight-to-video. There's little to recommend about it except for a few (unintentional) laughs early on before the Olympic team gets on the train and parties down at an overly-red-lit nightclub.

TRAIN is a one-note film with a one-note idea: somebody, somewhere said "let's make HOSTEL and set it on a train". The project was greenlight, and this movie was born, a vehicle for former Hollywood starlet Thora Birch produced by her former porn star father, Jack.

And, unsurprisingly, it turns out to be pretty rubbish. This is low budget, xenophobic nonsense throughout, shot in Eastern Europe and happily ripping off HOSTEL left, right, and centre. The story goes that a group of American gymnastics students are stranded abroad and suckered into boarding a decidedly dodgy train, where the usual shenanigans arise. This is a torture porn film and nothing else, so whether you enjoy it or not depends on how much you like seeing people getting bits snipped off them at frequent intervals.

The film boasts poor acting, one note characterisation, and bad direction. Thora Birch is just about adequate as the heroine, but the rest of the cast aren't up to much - apart from Gideon Emery perhaps, as the only distinctive one of the group (he's playing a gay, dope-smoking elder who hooks up with the rest). The villainous motivations are ludicrous, and the film really drags despite the plentiful action and many death sequences. I was also surprised at the sheer number of plot holes and goofs along the way, which indicates it was probably written and rushed out in a hurry to cash in on the success of the (thankfully) short-lived "torture porn" genre. In any case, it's a dog of a film.

It's not often that I'm able to sum up an entire film's plot effectively with only four words, but with this one it's easy: Hostel on a train. Writer/director Gideon Raff has taken the basic premise of Eli Roth's 2005 horror hit, in which a bunch of American teens in Eastern Europe are hacked to pieces by sadistic killers, and transplanted it to a Russian steam locomotive. The result is a mean spirited and gory movie that should satisfy most viewers' blood-lust, but it is also a thoroughly daft effort rendered laughable by plot-holes big enough to drive the film's massive locomotive through.

American Beauty star Thora Birch plays Alex, one of a group of American college wrestlers taking part in an international inter-school competition in Russia (she doesn't look much like wrestler, but I still wouldn't mind having a tussle). When Alex and her friends miss their scheduled rail connection to Odessa (having sneaked out to visit a local nightclub),they are tricked into taking an alternative train—one which turns out to be a mobile base for an organ harvesting operation. The kids are captured one-by-one and torn apart for their useful bits until only Alex is left alive; but although things look grim for the plucky girl, trapped and outnumbered on the speeding train, she's not about to give in without a fight.

Raff's direction is proficient, the cast all do a reasonable job, and the effects are suitably stomach churning, but the extremely silly plot leaves one asking far too many questions for which there no reasonable answers: How could such an elaborate illegal operation be feasible? Why do the kids happily hand over their passports to the train's' obviously untrustworthy staff? Can extremely delicate transplants be carried out on a moving train? How does Alex keep on moving after receiving several punches to the face that would have floored an elephant? Why remove the organs in a filthy, stinking, rusty carriage when they would need to be kept as clean as possible? As the film progresses, more and more awkward questions arise, undermining any sense of tension.

Given the stupidity of the narrative, it should also come as no surprise to learn that the characters make some really dumb decisions that don't exactly help their situation, including accepting an invitation to a party in an unfamiliar part of a foreign city, believing everything total strangers tell them, never fighting back (even when they outnumber their attacker and are trained wrestlers),and dropping any decent weapons in favour of running away unarmed.

The strange thing is, despite all of the impossibilities presented by the plot and the sheer idiocy of the film's teens, I actually had a good time with Train: the gore went a long way to keeping me entertained, being extremely vicious at times and easily topping the excesses of Roth's movie; there is quite a bit of general depravity, including an orgy in the nightclub, two of the bad guys taking time out to urinate on a victim, and even a spot of necro-buggery; the ending is hilarious, with the diminutive Birch going all Rambo and taking on all of the baddies single-handedly; and I probably shouldn't have, but I loved the the fact that the film was so unapologetically xenophobic, with the loathsome Russians taken to such a ridiculous level—easily reaching 11 on the Evilometer—that they became more amusing than frightening.

For keeping me entertained despite its many flaws and a complete absence of originality, I give Train a reasonable 6 out of 10.