Passengers on a train that crashes into a river must decide whether to risk waiting for help in the wreckage or take their chances in the murky depths below.

Allllll aboard! Catch a ride on the “Murder Mystery Express” in co-writter/director Dale Fabrigar’s Halloween thriller D-Railed. Starring veteran actor Lance Henriksen (Aliens and The Terminator) as well as Frank Lammers, Tonya Kay, and the surprisingly mature young actress Shae Smolik (The Sandman), D-Railed did not skimp on the bloody kills and pretty good cinematography, but unfortunately was a wash for me when taking into account the rampant plot holes.

You like getting into the Halloween spirit early, don’t you? Of course, you do! D-Railed is set on one fateful Halloween night where an unsuspecting group of train riders — composed of a mysterious man and woman (of no relation), a murder mystery dinner enthusiast, a young girl and her nanny, and a crew of murder mystery actors — all board a train of terrors. As they are on a murder mystery dinner theater train the terrors seem a part of the act at first, but they soon realize that they are a part of the night’s activities in the worst kind of way when some of the actors begin to turn on the passengers. Then, when a mishap in the engineer’s car takes matters from bad to worse, the group finds themselves hurtling down the tracks at breakneck speed, and the train soon becomes…. derailed, of course! After the car they are all located in winds up in a lake, the group of murder mystery attendees will be put through one horrifying night, coming face to face with an even bigger threat off of the train — some kind of monster. The group of strangers must ban together in order to try surviving what lies beneath the water.

For a movie about a situation going off of the rails, I found myself bored by the plot and checking the elapsed time at only halfway through. First of all, there are plot holes with actors used as pawns to establish a Halloween/spooky atmosphere that Dale Fabrigar was trying to cultivate, but then they are never seen or heard from again. The same for some shots that are used for dramatic effect that make no sense to how the story played out — these shots go unexplained in a lazy/plothole sort of way rather than in a mysterious way. Then, the plot does a sharp 90-degree turn to the left and becomes a completely different movie. It began as another film in line with Murder on the Orient Express (1974), and then suddenly, it becomes Kang ho Song’s The Host, and yet still I was bored out of my mind. For it only being about 1 hour and 20, this movie felt long and might have been better as a half hour short than a full-length movie. After all of the players were introduced, I just didn’t care what happened to them anymore, especially since I damn near guessed the end of the movie after hearing the name of one of the people we were meant not to suspect as the murderer. 

When the action does begin to pick up in the second half, I was already worn out with the movie’s plot holes and haphazard structure, and was further exacerbated by how comical the beast looks. This is unfortunate, because it is apparent that this film is not laughing at itself; it might have been wiser if it had gone a silly route or at least had some black comedy elements like The Host or Evil Dead 2 did. D-Railed takes itself too seriously for the narrative that it uses, and unfortunately, it turned out to be a frustrating watch. The only thing I did like about the creature created for this movie is that it appears it was done with suitmation — a guy donning practical makeup and a creature suit, like the old school Godzilla movies utilized, or at the very least, it did not go the route of using CGI.

Another feature from Uncork’d Entertainment, who lately has been on a roll distributing some well-produced thrillers, is now bringing this Halloween thriller in Dale Fabrigar’s D-Railed. Due for release August 6th, 2019 but currently making the festival rounds, D-Railed premiered at last year’s New York City Horror Film Festival, screened at the Toronto Indie Horror Fest last month, and also racked up a bunch of awards at the 2019 New York Film Awards. Check it out for yourself via DVD and on digital when it is released later this summer.