We will refer to this movie going forward as its lesser known name Amok Train, instead of Beyond the Door III. There are two reasons for this. One is that the story is about an amok train. The second is that it really has nothing to do with the original Beyond the Door.

This movie is about a group of American students going to Yugoslavia to witness an ancient sacred ritual. What they don’t know is that they are being set up. They are all going to be killed except for one, and she is going to become the Bride of Satan. Of course this is because she has “the Mark”, which was shown to us in a tasteful shower scene in the first three minutes of the film. Anyway, a crazy witch and a dude try to kill the students. Most of them escape. They end up hitching a ride on a train. This is no ordinary train though. This train is possessed! It also derails and rerails when it deems necessary to do so. I think it can evade radar too, but I’m not 100% sure on that one. Who escapes this Death Train? Does the girl become the Bride of Satan (BoS)? I’ll never tell.

I am mixed about this movie. Yeah, this is cheese with questionable acting, but I enjoyed it—at least the first half of it. It was filmed well. It was interesting. There was good gore. Good music. Good authentic scenery. Creepy villagers. You get the impression it had a little budget going for it. But then it happens. The whole train thing sucked the life from me. It was very slow and uninteresting during this part. The students were on the train the whole second half of the movie. You had too many train shots. The derailings were painfully long. Then, when you think it is over because it derailed, it rerails! The ending was actually pretty decent, but I actually had to fast forward through some of the train bullshit (I never fast forward through a movie).

As I said, most of the gore was good. A woman was decapitated by the old “metal beam flying through the windshield” trick. A guy was impaled on some sort of train sign. Good stuff. There was some not so good stuff also. A guy was crushed between two train cars, but they didn’t even show it. The train ran over several people. While these scenes were fairly effective, they were goreless. Overall though, good gore.

You are given one scene of nudity and they get it over with at the very beginning.

Overall, this isn’t a terrible flick. It’s made well, but it seems scatterbrained. No one questions why the potential BoS is immediately segregated from the rest of the students when they get to Yugoslavia. One guy burns up in a fire in their cabin while the other people get out. The guy was mesmerized or something. Why was he the only guy? One person mentions hot soup in like 5 consecutive sentences. They have a whole side story about two students that just miss the train. What happens? After a day or two driving nonstop while one of the couple hobbles on a broken foot, the train ends up derailing and killing them. Time space continuum aside, why bother making this side story?

Many people will not like this movie. I enjoyed it, except for the train ride. For some reason you just can’t duplicate the dark horrific atmospheres that many movies from the 80’s possess. I don’t know if it’s the old film it was made on, the hazy memories we have of watching them in our childhood, or just pure craftsmanship. At any rate, they make me a tad sentimental.

I give this movie 6 out of 10 for the first half of the movie and a 1 out of 10 for the second half. I also put in a .5 sentimentality adjuster and another .5 upgrade for the bold attempt at a decent finale to make up for the lackluster middle. Add all that up and you get 5 out of 10 official ways to foul up a “virgin sacrifice”.

Two side notes. Virtually everybody involved in this film is unknown, and there is a damn creepy witch in this movie.