Night Train to Venice (1996)

Sadly Over-hyped

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Its taken 5years to submit this review, because even thinking about the darkest few hours of my life watching this ASS of a film gets me upset and flipping angry. It was a Sunday night in the summer,i decided to sit down with a beer and a hot chilli pizza with next door neighbours cat by my side to feast on what i thought must be a good thriller with a somewhat interesting plot and storyline i was SO WRONG.When the credits came on the screen i spat and coughed my 5th beer over the cat, the cat called TIGGER licked my pizza plate chewing strong chilli almost dying on me. Tigger was my friend, i never saw him again. We both died that night.(SPIT)

0.5/10Back in the early 2000s I had saved my paper round money to purchase a DVD player with a surround sound system. When I opened the box I saw it came with a few free DVDs which certainly wasn't the norm. One of these films was Train to Hell (1996). From the title of the film and the picture of a big star actor (Grant) on the front I foolishly decided this was worth a watch.Terrible. Just absolutely awful. Words cannot describe how disappointing this film is. I sat through the entire film, start to finish!Even now, nearly 15 years later it still stands out vividly in my memory as the single worst film I've ever seen. The script was bizarre, the dialogue was all over the place, the camera work was often shaky and scenes with mistakes in the delivery and points where Grant mistakenly and nervously peeks into the camera lens were left in the final edit. It was clear from the look in Hugh Grant's eyes that he was uncomfortable with the direction during filming, at certain points he genuinely looks like he is going to be sick with anxiety.I think I burned the DVD after watching it, only to crave it again years later after discussing awful films with friends at uni. I felt I had to watch it again to make sure it wasn't just a dream (nightmare). I never managed to get a hold of another copy.I imagine if I was a lecturer on a cinema course I would make a point of showing all my students this film. It is basically a step by step guide of how to make a genuinely laugh out loud terrible film. I cannot fathom how people were paid to make this. I actually believe I could make a better film myself with a smartphone and a couple of friends; and that is saying something!If you're a film student, this is a must see......

It seems that the Italian Director Carlo U. Quinterio does not have experience in thriller film-making. Thus he delved into his Italian heritage and came up with a 20th century take on Dante's circles of hell....the film includes lust, wrath, violence, fraud an treachery. He should have looked at the film Murder on the Orient Express instead, which apart from the exaggerated speech of Hercules Poirrot is well executed. In Night Train to Venice, there are frequent transitions between reality and nightmares. Hugh Grant and Malcolm McDowell both gave memorable performances, yet they could not make this movie click. There is too much cruelty, too many characters that are not clarified, even the Stranger (McDowell) who seems to be the only constant factor in the plot is not really clear. What a shame. I gave it five points, since somehow I managed to stay with it till the end without falling asleep. So there is a grain here....somebody should take the story and do a re-make of it!

The version I watched was called 'Train To Hell'. In fact it was going to Venice. That sums up this strange soup of a film. What was it about? There were elements of Phantom of the Opera, politics, memory loss, theatre, the supernatural, a romance; all mixed together in an unsatisfying brew. The romance was particularly unbelievable. It clumsily lurched from one scene to another. What was it about? Hugh Grant was on automatic (but then I've always thought him a one trick pony), Tahnee Welch inadequate even in such an unchallenging role and poor Malcolm McDowell couldn't make much out of his role. He just kept trying to look enigmatic and evil, oddly in slow motion most of the time. His character was mysterious to no purpose and had no name except 'The Stranger'! A lot of the film was set on a train and the director kept cutting to exterior shots of the train travelling through the landscape, endlessly breaking up even short scenes for no apparent reason. What was that about? As to the ending, it was the most lame I've seen in years. What was that about? The best part in the film was the good photography, particularly of Venice. There were some gorgeous helicopter shots that made you almost weep at the beauty of the place. In the opening credits of the DVD I saw the last person mentioned was not the director as is most common but the producer. So Toni Hirtreiter, if you want to take the blame so be it. A strange but bad film.