On New Year’s Eve, a class of university students charter a train to party into the new year.
What they do not know is that a killer is on this train, a killer with a grudge…
One of Jamie Lee Curtis’s original slasher appearances (coming out between Prom Night and Halloween II), Terror Train is a weird one.
I have watched it before, and I always remember liking it more on reflection than during it.
The film has a great pedigree.
The film was the directorial debut of editor Roger Spottiswoode.
Spottiswoode started out as an editor, working with Sam Pechinpah. He would go onto a prolific directorial career, with a diverse range of credits. I know him primarily from his work on the Bond movie Tomorrow Never Dies.
My issue with Tomorrow Never Dies is how it relies on editing and coverage to create a sense of momentum, at the expense of anything else.
Terror Train suffers from a similar choppiness - it always feels like the tension is never allowed to build, because of the emphasis on cutting. It is not that the film needed to be like Halloweeen with extended takes, but it does feel like the filmmakers are not fully embracing the possibilities of the story of the primary location.
The film’s faults are not solely Spottiswoode’s - the film was made on a low budget, and so the crew probably did not have the time. However, it is a similarity I could not overlook.
The film was shot by Stanley Kubrick collaborator John Alcott, who developed a unique strategy of lighting the coaches using existing light sources and lenses he developed for Barry Lyndon.
On top of the crew, the cast is a who’s who of future names: Alongside Curtis and character actor Ben Johnson, the cast includes Hart Bochner (Ellis from Die Hard), Denise Matthews aka Vanity, and magician David Copperfield… as a magician.
The story is pretty interesting.
Unlike the motiveless evil of Michael Myers, the killer of Terror Train, Kenny Sampson (Derek MacKinnon), is the victim of a cruel prank by his fellow students and is out for revenge.
It is fairly clear Kenny is the killer, which adds a level of suspense to the movie, as we follow him as he switches masks and costumes with his victims during the group’s costume party.
The film’s focus on magic and illusion draws attention to the film’s own artifice, but in a way that also works for its mechanics as a suspense thriller:
The killer can pop out of anywhere - a luggage case, under a seat, outside the carriage.
Everything on this train is mutable and changeable, down to the performance of gender - it turns out Kenny has been hiding in plain sight, disguised as the magician’s assistant.
Terror Train is not that violent, but it is entertaining.
Alcott’s photography gives the primary setting a chilly sense of naturalism.
While the script does not give them much to work with, the cast are solid - Curtis and Johnson are good, while Bochner is deliciously sleazy as the asshole of the group.
As the mysterious magician who provides the party’s main entertainment, Copperfield’s deadpan energy provides an eerie presence to the film, one that works as a misdirect.
The film is never as good as its constituent parts, but Terror Train is a solid programmer slasher movie with some unique selling points.
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