You have to respect a film that is willing to center itself around the most despicably heartless creatures known to man…medical students. Our tale begins with a prank gone horribly wrong. In my book there are two kinds of pranks, there are funny harmless ones and then there are those that involve forced necrophilia and an extended mental hospital stay for the victim. TERROR TRAIN involves the latter variety. Poor Kenny Hamson, whose sanity is already hanging by a thread, is lured into believing he’s about to spend a hot night with his dream-date Alana (horror goddess Jamie Lee Curtis). Instead he ends up canoodling with a bloated corpse whose arms won’t even stay attached. This sends him literally spiraling into madness.
Three years later, Kenny’s out to teach all those involved a valuable lesson in comeuppance (you got to hand it to Kenny, three years is a relatively small gestation period in slasherland). He picks the night when the seniors are planning a typical new year’s eve/masquerade/magic show/graduation train ride to exact his revenge. Changing into the costumes of his victims, he systematically stalks them one by one. High on his grudge list is Alana who was instrumental in his downfall.
Curtis’s Alana is on some pretty shaky moral ground here. I get that she had no idea about the rotting corpse involved but she did lend her voice to the ruse. Sure, she’s visibly upset by the results but really, was she expecting a positive outcome when she tricked the school’s biggest loser into thinking she’d sleep with him? Four horror films in, Curtis must be feeling pretty confident in her survivor status because this is NOT final girl behavior. If P.J Soles behaved like this, she’d be decapitated in three minutes. We’re a long way from Laurie Strode here and I think I’m routing for Kenny.
That is until Kenny starts showing up in some of the weakest horror guises I’ve ever seen. The Groucho Marx mask has potential but the lizard and chicken face have to go. And I’m a little disappointed in Kenny’s kills. Where did he learn to murder people from watching old episodes of HART TO HART? Most of the deaths are off screen or cut away during the money shot. Still an above average slasher, Terror Train seems a bit more outdated then it’s brethren. The disco tunes are fine, but trying to present a magician as mysterious or spooky is madness. In this day and age a magician is seen as nothing more than a loud mime.
Lame kills and David Copperfield aside, Terror train has more than enough going for it. It’s visually impressive, shot by John Alcott who was the cinematographer for THE SHINING and directed by Roger Spottiswoode who was none other than Sam Peckinpah’s trusted editor. From the train’s steam cloud to the icy snowscapes to the almost lantern like lighting in the train’s interiors the movie just bleeds atmosphere. The cast is also top notch, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner (who nearly reprises this role in URBAN LEGENDS 2), Sandee Currie who we all know and love from CURTAINS, Prince protege Vanity (listed here as D.D Winters), and of course Jaimie Lee Curtis, who I promised myself I wouldn’t route for but still did. She’s never been surpassed as scream queen and I doubt she ever will. Terror Train is ultimately worth the ride, I just wish it left a little more blood on the tracks.
[Editor's Note: Horror Yearbook would like to welcome our new guest writer Lance Vaughan. We're very happy to add yet another HUGE horror fan to our family, and a very long time friend of the site. Lance also writes for Retro Slashers.]
Lance Vaughan
