On a snowing Christmas Eve, a stranger embarks in the night train Nightingale at Fall Brook Station and has a heart attack after an overdose on pills and vodka. The medical student Chloe (Leelee Sobieski) and the drunken salesman Peter Dobbs (Steve Zahn) see a mysterious box with the stranger with valuable stones inside and convince the stiff conductor Miles (Danny Glover) to not report the death of the passenger and keep the box for them. Chloe chops the corpse with a cleaver; put the severed parts in a trunk and Peter and Miles dump it from a bridge into the Sturgeon River; however they do not succeed in opening the box. Therefore Chloe does not get off the train in Maple Creek, but the passenger Mr. Gutman (Constantine Gregory) embarks seeking out the stranger. He subdues the greedy trio and discloses that everyone that sees inside the box dies until the end of the day; but Peter accidentally kills him. When they have an unscheduled stop by the police that had found the body parts in the river, the number of corpses increases in a travel without return.
"Night Train" has an intriguing plot with a mysterious Pandora box that corrupts the soul of bizarre characters. The weird story has a promising beginning with black humor and an excellent character – Chloe – that is wasted to a collection of clichés in the end. Unfortunately the director and writer Brian King loses control and derails with his "Night Train" to a very deceptive conclusion without any explanation about the content of the mystical box. My vote is six.
Title (Brazil): "Viagem Sem Volta" ("Travel Without Return")
