"The Prince of Darkness is about to choose his new bride" in BEYOND THE DOOR III, on Blu-ray/DVD combo from Vinegar Syndrome.

After a credit sequence depicting a sect of hooded cultists with sinister intent, we cut to Los Angeles where a group of students have been informed that they have been invited to Yugoslavia as part of a cultural exchange program to witness the performance of a passion play that predates the birth of Christ. Outcast Beverly (Mary Kohnert, BIG MAN ON CAMPUS) is informed by her mother (Victoria Zinny, VIRIDIANA) that her father actually came from the part of the world she is traveling to (the mother is then promptly killed in an OMEN-esque accident). The group of students, lead by a sinister Professor (Bo Svenson, WALKING TALL PART TWO) to a foggy village where the silent villagers attempt to kill them. Most of the students escape and hop on a passing train which then takes on a life of its own, killing anyone who tries to stop it from delivering Beverly to her fate (while the Yugoslavian female equivalent of Raymond Burr in GODZILLA 1985 observes the action from the railroad's central headquarters).

Although known as AMOK TRAIN in European territories, the film was released as BEYOND THE DOOR III in America (to cash in on the decades old success of BEYOND THE DOOR also produced by Ovidio G. Assonitis). The R-rated US tape and laserdisc releases were virtually scrubbed clean of several surprisingly gory special effects that were seen in international prints. The story itself is not only derivative but has an everything-including-the-kitchen-sink mentality yet the execution is admirable. Cinematographer Adolfo Bartoli (THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM) makes the most of the misty Yugoslavian landscapes and filters, managing some elegant sequences, helping to balance elements of the disaster genre and gothic horror. The pyrotechnic special effects are quite ambitious for a low budget production but the model train effects sequences are laughable, particularly a bit where the train goes off the tracks and across a lake to kill off two characters who were not able to hop aboard. Assonitis' BEYOND THE DOOR co-director and cinematographer Roberto D'Ettore Piazzoli (MADHOUSE) is credited as "Special Creative Consultant" and was likely responsible for shooting the action and gore sequences. Although the film is an American production shot in pre-civil war Yugoslavia, it has the feel of a slightly higher-budgeted Italian Filmirage production of the period largely due to the live sound recording and the Korg keyboard score by eighties Italian horror mainstay Carlo Maria Cordio (KILLING BIRDS). Apart from Svenson, TV star Kohnert, Zinny (mother of DEMONS' Karl Zinny and MACABRE's Veronica Zinny), and Slovenian actress Savina Gersak (who made a handful of Italian films around this period including IRON WARRIOR), most of the main cast were American students in Rome with only Alex Vitale having made a couple Italian films before like STRIKE COMMANDO and THE BRONX EXECUTIONER, while Ron Williams would appear in Lamberto Bava's THE MASK OF SATAN (an adaptation of the same source material as his father's BLACK SUNDAY) and replace Kim Rossi-Stuart for the third through sixth entries of Fabrizio de Angelis' KARATE WARRIOR series. Assonitis fans may recognize the apparition of the Prince of Darkness from the opening sequence of his earlier production THE VISITOR/STRIDULUM. Voice artist/singer Susan Zelouf has a small role as a schoolteacher.

Released direct-to-video and laserdisc by RCA/Columbia as part of their distribution deal with Trans World Entertainment-successor Epic Home Video in a butchered R-rated cut, BEYOND THE DOOR III appeared abroad in a significantly gorier version than suggested by the American version. Like Assonitis' earlier production THE BITE (released here as CURSE 2), the film was shot in Super 35mm to be matted at 2.35:1 with the subtitles for the Serbo-Croat dialogue appearing to be positioned near the middle of the frame in open-matte transfers like the American cassette and the uncut Australian one titled DEATH TRAIN. The Japanese VHS release and the non-anamorphic German DVD from Dragon Entertainment were matted to 1.85:1. While MGM appears to have retained the television rights to the film through the Epic package – and it does show from time to time on television with an MGM logo – the home video rights were retained by Assonitis (either from the time that the title originally became part of the Epic package or possibly in the outcome of Assonitis' lawsuit against Gincarlo Parretti who had appointed him CEO of Cannon after pushing Menahem Golan out), and the first 2.35:1 anamorphic DVD came from Media Blasters' Shriek Show label with the cover title AMOK TRAIN but the onscreen title of BEYOND THE DOOR III. Derived from a new 4K scan of the original camera negatives, Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen looks great in high definition, showcasing Bartoli's talents as a cinematographer, delineating onscreen fog and smoke from on-camera diffusion while the miniature effects look no better or worse than before. The sole audio track is an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 rendering of the Dolby Stereo track which is suitably boisterous when it comes to Cordio's bombastic score, explosions, and the possessed train. Like the Japanese tape and the Shriek Show DVD, only two lines of Serbo-Croat are subtitled on the print while the rest of the Serbo-Croat dialogue is subtitled with either an optional English subtitle track or a English SDH track that includes all dialogue and sound effects.

While the Shriek Show disc had interviews with Assonitis and Bartoli, Vinegar Syndrome has "Running Amok" (39:48), an interview with director Kwitny whose short film reel was passed along to Assonitis while he was working at Corman's New Horizons, and he would spend a few years between Los Angeles and Rome writing screenplays for Assonitis (presumably credited to others as BEYOND THE DOOR III is to dialogue coach Sheila Goldberg who is also credited as writer of Umberto Lenzi's GHOSTHOUSE), and he would direct the low budget slasher ICED before being asked to Americanize the screenplay "The Train" based on a concept he had pitched years before and to direct it. Kwitny recalls shooting in Yugoslavia just before the civil war, with military protection, the expertise of Bartoli's lighting and camerawork, notes that he had nothing to do with the kill scenes, but is impressed with some of the second unit shots of the train that he also had nothing to do with. He also relates an anecdote about contacting James Cameron just before he was set to start the film in order to hear the man's opinions on Assonitis and about PIRANHA II.