The Death Train (1978)

Director: Igor Auzins

Writer: Jose Luis Bayonas

Starring: Hugh Keays-Byrne, Ingrid Mason, Max Meldrum, Ken Goodlet, Brian Wenzel, Colin Taylor, Aileen Britton, Ron Haddrick, Geraldine Ward, Justine Saunders, Diana Davidson, Terry Camilleri, John Orcsik

More info: IMDb

Tagline: No train, no tracks, yet death rides the rails.

Plot: An insurance investigator, checking into the death of a man run over by a train in his back yard, uncovers a web of murder, land fraud swindles and supernatural beings.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again?  No.

The print I saw was a lousy VHS copy and the sound was equally horrible.  But I still enjoyed it to a point.  It is slow but the mystery is interesting and Keays-Byrne (from the first and last MAD MAX movies) does a really good job.  The rest of the cast does a fine job but he really stood out.  You know something's not right from the first few minutes because there's no way there's a ghost train killing folks...or is there...  Ted (Keays-Byrne) uses his noggin to figure this shit out and he does a fine job of it despite nearly everyone in the town rejects him upon meeting him.  I really dig how Ted wins over everyone, one by one.  He's got a great gift of assessing the situation and trying another tactic, regardless of how obvious it is to the audience that he's playing them.  The story drags a little here and there but the worst part was the lousy picture and sound quality.  But then we can't always be choosy when it comes to these things.  I really wanted to see it and this was the best and only option.