The Sleeping Car (1990)

Jason McCree (David Naughton) has just divorced from his wife and although being over-aged, he decides to study journalism. He rents an old sleeping car of a train for living. However, the car is possessed by the spirit of the husband of his landlady, called "The Mister", who was responsible for the collision of two trains in an horrible accident ten years ago. "The Sleeping Car" is a confused B-movie with a non-sense screenplay full of flaws and bad acting of the lead actor, David Naughton. There are some few good lines, but the story is a complete mess, without explanation for most of the situation. My vote is three.Title (Brazil): "O Expresso Macabro" ("The Macabre Express")

"The Sleeping Car" is a pretty insignificant and worthless horror film that is made endurable by a couple of nice special effects and a neat supporting role by Kevin McCarthy. The plot revolves on an over-aged journalism student Jason (David McNaughton from "American Werewolf in London) who rents an old, refurnished train carriage to live in. This carriage – the sleeping car – is possessed by the spirit of "the Mister", the landlady's late husband who was responsible for a huge train crash ten years earlier. The screenplay doesn't make that much sense, but you can hardly consider that an obstacle in early 90's horror movies. There's some nice murdering and the female lead Judie Aronson is yummy. What's really annoying about the "the Sleeping Car" are the constant witty remarks of protagonist Jason McCree. He uses a supposedly funny one-liner every time his character does or says something. Even in the climax, when he's fighting (?) the demon, he interrupts the action for a lousy remark...Very annoying.

If you've ever wondered what a horror film written by a Woody Allen wannabe would come out like, then check this one out. It's imaginatively directed, has a typical but enjoyable "haunted place" premise, solid makeup effects....it's an all-around good job, but with one major flaw: the dialogue is overloaded with cheeky wisecracks and witticisms (sample: "You want scary? Go shopping with my ex-wife") that sometimes hit the mark, but are too often delivered at the most inappropriate moments (even while the hero is battling an evil ghost!). (**)

This one would be just an average horror B-movie, reasonably well done from what I could judge from a pan&scanned video, but the characters makes up for the ludicrous premise : they are lively and fun. There are illogisms, as usual, but the overall fun atmosphere makes it worth viewing for genre fans. And there is a first : death by couch springs !