Even though it may sound like a children's book about a tired old Buick, The Sleeping Car is actually a pretty entertaining slice of pre-grunge cheese. I say pre-grunge, because even though it is technically 1990, it has a lot of 80's charm and style to it. And since the titular car refers to a train car, you know we're dealing with slightly outdated things anyways. But while The Sleeping Car is unintentionally entertaining at times, most of the times it is intentionally so. It leans hard on the comedy, and I guess your mileage will vary on how funny you find it. Most horror/comedy you come across nowadays depends to some degree on physical/gore-type humor, but the humor here is more character based. Specifically, our leading man Jason (David Naughton of American Werewolf in London fame) is all about super corny one-liners. And while they are often groaners, they are actually pretty funny most of the time. It's almost like a decent late 80s sitcom transposed onto a horror movie. If that idea doesn't repulse you, I think you might dig The Sleeping Car.
It doesn't hurt that it starts off with one of the best/worst opening sequences I've seen in a long time. A young man and woman are getting it on in a moving train (so you get lots of the requisite nudity out of the way right off the bat). It's intercut with some old man yelling maniacally for the kid (presumably - he's just yelling a last name). This goes on for about 2 minutes. Once the old man finally finds him, he speaks the first line of dialogue in the film: "Get your filthy fornicating ass back on watch!" (which sets the tone for a lot of ridiculous dialogue to come). The kid is all like "whatever old man, I'll stick with getting laid." Then there are some incoherent shots of trains at night, the old man screams, jumps off the train, and the train blows up! We learn later that two trains (supposedly) crashed, but the was it's shot/edited makes it completely incoherent. We're off to a good start!
Ten years later, we meet our hero Jason McCree... he's a wise-cracking man in his mid-thirties, and he's looking for a place to rent after his recent divorce. He comes across a strange rental property in the shape of a train car converted into an apartment. But, it's fully furnished and near the college he'll be attending. (He has some experience in the newspaper business... but his ex-wife's family owned the paper. So he's out to better himself and figure out the "right" way to get into journalism.) So, despite the elderly landlady's strange rules, he takes it. And of course, since this is a horror movie, it's haunted. Haunting or no, McCree gets romantically involved with a younger student, hangs out with his "endearingly quirky" professor, and finds an ally against the haunting in his eccentric new-age neighbor.
And notice the quotations around "endearingly quirky" - this guy (professor Bud Sorenson) is really something else:
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| you see, he a professor and likes writing. So he has words on his shirt. |
He's really grating and annoying but in a surprisingly watchable way. So kudos to Jeff Conaway for making him somewhat palatable. He's a pretty classic know-it-all professor type - dazzling people with big words and being a pretentious windbag - and even though he's scummy (threatening to not pass a female student if she won't go "party" with him) you're not actively rooting for him to die. Or maybe it's just that awesome shirt. He is the first character I've ever seen break into someones house, steal their beer, and then call a phone sex line, so that's something.
Anyways, I really got a kick out of the main character Jason McCree. He's got some great lines ("someone should really take you aside... and leave you there") that are just charming in their cheesiness. And David Naughton has the affability to pull it off. Judie Aronson is also good as McCree's younger love interest Kim - although she falls victim to the dated style/fashion of the movie more than anyone else. While neither her nor McCree's dialogue sounds realistic, the two have good comedic chemistry and sell it well. And special mention must be made of Kevin McCarthy as McCree's kind of kooky neighbor... he's always a treat to see in these comedic roles. There isn't a lot of depth to any of the characters, but they are all interesting - you get the idea that could pair off any combination of them and it'd make a good odd-couple tale. While they almost seem like they could be from a sketch comedy show, enough of the jokes land and it moves along fast enough that it never really drags.
The comedy stuff works a bit better than the horror stuff, but that is not to say that the horror is bad. Effects-wise, The Sleeping Car is at its best when its using buckets/pools of blood. It doesn't happen a lot, but the couple of times it does are pretty great. A bit in the end with a random blood geyser was over the top enough to actually make me cheer. There is nothing particularly memorable about the death scenes - for some reason they mostly revolve around a deadly hideaway bed. So in a way, it's the sequel to Death Bed that we've all been waiting for.
And it's a well enough made film. Director Douglas Curtis is maybe a bit over-reliant on strobing cuts/edits, but overall it does the job. It runs the risk of looking a little boring or bland at times (the lighting in the titular car makes it tough to see some of the time), but all of the important things look fine.
Overall, it's a pretty cheesy flick, but it's fun. You may need to enjoy this particular brand of humor to get into it, but I'd say it's worth it. I mean, it's the kind of movie where McCree and his new flame Kim are talking about how good he is at writing, and she looks at him and slyly says "what else are you good at"... and... cut to them having sex. It wouldn't be out of place in a ZAZ-style parody, but here it's presented half-seriously. That pretty well exemplifies where The Sleeping Car exists on the comedy spectrum - legitimately funny at times, a little bit self-aware, but not overly so.
I would recommend this film.
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