Runtime: 97 minutes
Directed by: Roger Spottiswoode
Starring: Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, Sandee Currie, David Copperfield!
From: 20th Century Fox
After a hectic past couple of days, my schedule should be back to normal now. As I plan on viewing the new Scream real soon, why not spend the following few days in the horror genre? Terror Train is a movie I've been meaning to see for awhile-as much of the United States is currently suffering a cold spell with large sections covered in snow, why not check out a piece of Canuxploitation presumably set in Illinois (more on that at the end) & the entire movie is in an Arctic-looking landscape?
Heavily indebted to the style of Halloween (it is much more about suspense/tension than gore—it's not as good as Carpenter's classic by any means) the opening scene shows a fraternity prank gone wrong. The rest of the film is three years after the fact, where a frat and a sorority pay the cash to have a bacchanal on an old train... one where by contrivance it does not carry a working radio. Most of the gang is drunker than Cooter Brown before they even board the passenger cars, which made me laugh although that did make many of the lead characters a bunch of fools. If the train setting is uncommon for a horror picture, the inclusion of magic and getting to see David Copperfield playing (get this) a magician is far more peculiar. In hindsight it is not a surprise he became popular-aside from his magician skills, he does have movie star looks. The tricks he did in the movie were impressive... although at least one as shown required movie magic to happen, unless he was Harry Potter and actually has magical powers.
As the fraternity prank did not kill a character named Kenny, is it him that's killing those college students during their drunken soiree? Terror Train does not entirely deliver on its potential of a slasher in that unique confined area; be that as it may, it was fine enough for my tastes. Director Roger Spottiswoode is the definition of “a journeyman director”-although he did direct a Bond film so I'm not hating-but in his debut he was mostly competent. What really aided Terror Train in its look and creating suspense: hiring the cinematographer of 2001, Barry Lyndon and The Shining to do the same for you. Due to John Alcott, the movie is at least nice to look at. Of course, the leads including Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner and Ben Johnson also helped.
Personally, several aspects amused me: how the killer was revealed (it'd be a massive spoiler to explain why), the guy who was Ellis in Die Hard playing another A-hole, the bash having people in costume allowing the villain to don various disguises/steal the outfits of those he butchered, a band only known as Crime providing some odd tunes, and a supporting character in the opening scene wearing a sweatshirt that says “Northern Illinois” on the front... as I grew up not that far away I know that is a shirt advertising Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, a campus I've been on more than a few times in my life. That part of rural Illinois does not exactly look like Quebec-where this was actually filmed-but alas... anyhow, tomorrow night my review will be posted a few hours later than usual, because reasons.
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