Stop me if you've heard this one before: A priest and a nun board a train in Canada -- Canada! It's always Canada! -- and then must battle unleashed evil.
Speed Demon
The film will be available May 31, 2026, On Demand and On Digital, via Maverick Film and Complex Corp.
Sister Lu (Katie Cassidy) is having a crisis of faith.
That would explain why she is introduced sitting discreetly naked on a motel bed. It's only after we see the cocaine and the other two slumbering bodies on the bed that Sister Lu appears again, dressed in her habit and heading out the door to board a speeding train bound for Hell.
Father Novak (William H. Macy) is not pleased to see her, disheveled and uncaring, nor to smell her, stinking of alcohol. Soon the reasons for her discontent are made apparent, and Father Novak expresses his frustration, as only William H. Macy can succinctly communicate.
By then, other passengers on the train have been introduced like the opening scenes of a disaster film from the 1970s: a young, very smart girl and her Japanese mother; a young man with a heart condition and his concerned romantic partner; a distinguished-looking older gentleman; and so forth. The train is heading from Montreal, Canada, to New York, New York, but it has an unexpected passenger, as Rod Serling would say in introducing The Twilight Zone.
The unexpected passenger is a carved wooden image of Asmodeus, known in some texts as the King of Demons. The image was a gift from a one-week stand to a passenger on the train, who becomes the first victim of the demon within when he pricks his finger on the image. The passenger gets possessed, gets sick, and starts causing all kinds of hell on the train.
Sister Lu is a target because, as a child, her father was possessed by the demon for a while. After that ended badly, she was taken in by the church and Father Novak. While she picks up on the demon's presence quickly, it takes a little while longer for the other passengers to catch on and follow her lead, after Father Novak's, erm, untimely departure from the battle.
Written by Domenico Salvaggio and directed by Jon Keeyes, Speed Demon is a tidy film that makes good, if not exhaustive, use of its setting. The teaming of an older priest with a heart condition, who first endeavors to cast off a demon, and a younger priest experiencing a crisis of faith, who must then step in, even though he does not feel qualified, is borrowed from William Friedkin's The Exorcist (1973), though the older priest's heart condition is given to a young, coupled passenger, and the younger priest with a crisis of faith is replaced by a nun.
Setting the exorcism on a runaway train recalls the same era's Bullet Train (1975), directed by Jun'ya Satô, in which a train is set to blow up if it slows down, a premise that has been borrowed multiple times since. Replacing a criminal or terrorist with a demon is a brilliant stroke, I must admit.
In a show of modernity, the fact that the nun cannot perform an exorcism, which is reserved for priests, is merrily mocked by multiple passengers, who do not display any spirituality of their own. All become believers when Sister Lu demonstrates her fearless nature; clearly, she is up to the task, no matter what the Catholic Church might say in the moment. (Have no fear: This is addressed in the concluding scene.)
The young girl's Japanese mother is handy when she sees a swarm of fireflies and talks of Japanese folklore about hitodama. Domenico Salvaggio's script also adds other supernatural elements to the story, which all figure into Sister Lu's transformation from a doubting nun into a redoubtable action hero.
Jon Keeyes' direction reflects his extensive experience in making the most of a limited budget. Austin F. Schmidt's shooting (as director of photography) and R.J. Cooper's editing also enhance the film's continual momentum.
Convincingly effective as both nun and demon fighter, Katie Cassidy lends her considerable grace to a role that may initially sound risible, yet proves to be soundly entertaining in a swiftly-moving B-movie vein.