Terror Train (1980) Review

"I never saw anybody as dead as that."
-Carne



To celebrate New Year's Eve, a college fraternity throws a party on a train and everybody is wearing costumes.  This makes it easy for a killer to slip aboard.  As bodies begin to pile up, the students and the train crew have to try and catch the killer before everyone's lives are permanently derailed.


What Works:

I really like movies that are set on trains.  I think trains are a great setting that cuts off the characters from the rest of the world and forces them to use just what they have with them to solve the conflict.  While the movie doesn't use all of the potential of this setting, I still like the novelty of a slasher movie set on a train.

It's always fun to have Jamie Lee Curtis in a slasher movie.  She's a solid protagonist and very different from her character in the Halloween movies.  

The other main character is Carne, the train's conductor, who is played by Academy-Award winning actor, Ben Johnson.  It's interesting to have an older character like Carne be such a important figure in a teen slasher movie.  Johnson is solid in the role and Carne is a likable guy.

I'm going to spoil the ending of this movie from 1980 now.


The killer in Terror Train is evident from the get-go.  We all knew it was Kenny (Derek McKinnon), but the way the film reveals that Kenny is the killer is well handled.  We are led to believe that Kenny is actually the magician (David Copperfield), but it turns out Kenny was in drag as the magician's assistant.  It's actually kind of a neat reveal that speaks to the role of the magician's assistant in magic shows.  It remind me of the movie Now You See Me.  For such an obvious killer, I think the reveal was handled as well as it could have been.

Before the characters get on the train, we are introduced to the obnoxious class-clown, Ed (Howard Busgang).  He is immediately killed after a a minute or two of his clowning around.  I enjoyed that his death happened in front of everyone, who all thought it was just another joke by him.  It was a solid first kill and removed an annoying character quickly, which I always appreciate.


What Sucks:

There are plenty of boring stretches in this film.  We spend a lot of time with these characters, most of whom are awful, and their dull drama.  Apart from the two aforementioned leads, I didn't care about any of them and I just wanted to get to the kills.

The kills themselves are pretty unmemorable.  A lot of them happen off-screen and we end up just finding their bodies later.  We're watching slasher movies for the kills.  If they aren't good, why even make a movie?

I wish this film had utilized the setting a bit more.  The 3rd act, final girl chase is solid, but it could have gone on longer.  It would have been fun to see them go on the roof of the train or through more of the cars.  More of this, less of the dull drama.


Verdict:

Terror Train has a few decent characters, a solid, if underused, setting, and a well-handled killer reveal, but there are plenty of boring stretches, the kills are nothing special, and the film did not use all of its potential.

 6/10: Okay

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