The Ninth Guest (1934)

Among the more shocking moments of this 1934 horror mystery are scenes showing hysterical characters throwing themselves against the electrified door of the booby-trapped New Orleans apartment they are trapped inside having been lured there with dinner-party invitations but finding themselves not wined and dined but picked off one by one by their mysterious host, a plot that suggests Agatha Christie may have had inspiration for her famous "And Then There Were None."

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Ten Little Indians (1989)

Transporting Agatha Christie's classic mystery, an early example of the modern slasher, to an African safari rather than an island off the Devon coast was probably just meant to reduce staging costs to the purchase of a single tent, and it gives the classic story of gathered guests being picked off one by one by a mysterious safari host a distinctly Gilligan's Island-feel as our gathered guests, or doomed victims, including Frank Stallone as Phillip Lombard, take showers behind cane shower screens, traverse ravines in a rickety vine cable car,  and deliver lines of dialogue in the wooden manner of The Skipper.

★★☆☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS

Terror Train (1980)

Three years after a (really revolting) med student prank, a group of students gather for a New Year's Eve party aboard a steam train, and as the train shoots through the night, it turns out one of those on board is picking the others off one by bloody one....and the passenger we sympathise with, not so involved in that prank and striving to stay alive while all her besties end up sliced and diced is -- no, not a starey young David Copperfield who appears as a magician without a Working With Children check, hired to be the onboard entertainment - but Jamie Lee Curtis, adding her 80s-horror clout to this effective slasher with several truly chilling moments.

★★★☆☆

CINECAL: ONE SENTENCE REVIEWS