END OF THE LINE (2007)
Starring Ilona Elkin, Nicolas Wright & Neil Napier
Directed by Maurice Devereaux
Written by Maurice Devereaux

 

Long delayed in its DVD release by a quest for distribution, End of the Line finally came direct-to-DVD this year. When I initially saw the packaging for this movie, my first thought was “oh, zombies on a train.” so, I gave it a shot, expecting that simple premise. What I got was something less, and at the same time, something much more.

The film opens with a few great, very creepy sequences. The initial dream-sequence is a bit of a cop-out, but sets the mood well enough. In the second sequence, a lone Japanese girl waits for a train to come, as a stranger, turned away from her, creeps closer and closer through a series of creative cuts. In retrospect, I don't know what the hell the point of this sequence is, but it is very well put together, extremely creepy, and has a predictably bloody end.

Now that you've gotten a taste of ghosts and zombies, its time for the film to take a very unexpected turn. All the of the characters and victims are introduced on the train, one vignette at a time, when a series of beepers go off simultaneously. Suddenly, a religious cult, many members of whom are on the train, get up and start massacring passengers.

The majority of End of the Line is the chase between the cultists and their intended victims. Intercut with this are visions of an apocalypse as the cult, in the world above the subterranean shuffle. It seems the cult, which must be friggin' gigantic, believes that the world will be flooded with demons that night, and any living human will be possessed and dragged to Hell. Their solution is to murder every person in sight before the end-times and, failing that, themselves.

The chase is bloody (surprisingly so, check out the stunningly brutal decapitation scene), often shlocky, and very entertaining. The cultists are religious zealots to a degree that is goofy, but the eeriness of their chant and real sense of dread their ritual murders creates does a good job of keeping the movie from falling into total camp. Still, one has to ask, what's up with the demons on the DVD package? The ghosts? The zombies?

That all comes into play when the trapped protagonists take out a couple of the cultists and find their fanny-pack food supply. Necessity demands that they eat. Of course, from the behavior of the cultists, it seems that their muffins just might be laced with some sort of powerful hallucinogenic. Suddenly, the panicked group can no longer trust in their own senses, and the real fun begins. There is a moment in the middle of the film where you will almost give up, but sticking out to the end, it finally delivers on its advertizing.

End of the Line is a bizarre little film. Its entirely unbelievable, and fairly cardboard in all of its characterizations. Just as well, as all of the acting is pretty melodramatic. The two main girls are solid, but the delivery of all the guys is just off somehow. But the film, for such a low-budget production, looks great. All of the blood and guts are vibrant and visceral. There's a little too much blood to say it looks realistic, but the film tries very hard to shock you. There's just so many moments that make the audience go “What the FUCK is going on?” that you can't help but be strangely entertained by the whole ordeal. Throw on top some pretty good creature design, and I call it a winner.

I can't say you'll love End of the Line, but I can say its worth seeing. Its a great Indy that shows some real horror craftsmanship, and succeeds at being painfully different from the rest of the films of late; a few genuine scares, too. As a film, its greatest flaw is perhaps being clogged with too many characters and too many ideas; there are many worse complaints that can be made about better-known and higher-budgeted movies. I'm glad it finally came out on DVD. Now if I can just hold out for October's Trick R Treat release, I can finally say I'm satisfied.