D-Railed is an interesting low-budget confection that marries several cinematic tropes – the murder mystery, disaster movie, creature feature, ghost story – to create a flawed and slightly schizophrenic narrative that ultimately entertains and passes muster despite the nagging sensation that it doesn’t hang together quite as well as it thinks it does and certainly doesn’t make a lot of sense.
A bunch of paying passengers board a Victorian-era themed Halloween Murder Mystery train and are initially diverted by the cast’s theatrical antics once dinner is served and the train is underway. But it quickly transpires that all is not as it seems and they soon find themselves in the middle of a heist and held at gunpoint. The train drivers are compromised and the train plunges off a bridge and into a lake where the survivors discover that a strange aquatic creature is stalking them and dragging them under the water. A handful of these unfortunates eventually make their way ashore but they are still not safe. They hole up in an abandoned house but the lake-creature has got the taste for blood and isn’t far behind…
D Railed is a bit all over the place but that’s really part of its shambolic charm. If you’re not gripped by the heist element of the plot then don’t worry, there’s a train crash on the way and if that doesn’t hold your attention well…here comes an aggressive amphibian to provide a handy volte-face. It’s not unreasonable to take the view either that this suggests a film that doesn’t quite know what it wants to be or a film that’s challenging conventions by defying them and happily mixing and matching tones to keep its audience guessing, We’ll give it the benefit of the doubt and go with the latter. D Railed is fun but it’s not wholly satisfying, possibly as a result of cramming too much into its brief running time, resulting in too many unanswered questions. Aboard the train, one of the passengers seems to suffer strange visions of insects crawling across the table which seems to have no bearing on anything that happens later on and we’re not offered any explanation for what the creature in the lake actually is or where it’s come from. The conclusion – where spit-and-cough guest star Lance Henricksen finally gets something to do – veers off into yet another direction and if it ultimately doesn’t completely convince – (like the whole film really) the journey has been pleasantly enjoyable thanks to some spirited performances from a largely unknown cast and a decent script. On reflection, we’re probably not minded to ask for a refund on our ticket and we might not even object to travelling with director Dale Fabriger again as long as he has a slightly clearer idea of where he’s going and how he plans to get there next time out of the station.
Release Date: July 19th
