All Aboard... If You Dare!

When a group of college students rent out a train for a New Years Eve party, six of them become the target of a masked psycho who has decided to join the party. What we find out at the beginning of the film is that these six students we're all involved in a prank that went horribly wrong three years earlier. As the masked man man kills them off one by one he replaces his costume with the ones from each victim. Jamie Lee Curtis stars as Alana Maxwell who not only is aboard the train of death but she was one of the six involved in the prank. The party resumes into the night and the students party it up completely oblivious to the terror going on around them. David Copperfield also stars as the magician hired to entertain the drunk students on their trip. There are some decent kill scenes throughout the film and as Alana discovers some of the deaths she is determined to find out who the killer is in a tension filled ending between Alana and the killer. There is a twist ending and with many movies from this time period that contain twist endings usually end up poor and predictable, this one turns out pretty good. The acting from just about everyone including Copperfield is good, and Jamie Lee does a great job in the scream queen role as she did in Halloween.

Terror Train was released in 1980 and was directed by Roger Spottiswoode as his debut feature. Writer Dan Grodnik came up with the story in a dream after watching Halloween and Silver Streak. The first title he came up with was Terrible Train and later decided Terror Train was more effective, he calls it "Halloween" on a train. The movie was actually filmed on a train and a car from the train can be seen today at the Arizona Railway Museum. Jamie Lee Curtis shot this film back to back with Prom Night, both we're shot in Canada.

The DVD release of Terror Train is pretty bare-bones although it does contain both wide screen and full screen versions of the film.

There was a ton of slashers released in the early 80's during the heyday of the slasher genre and in my opinion the greatest period for slashers ever. With the amount of bad slashers in the early 80's (Literally thousands) there is also a good amount of great ones including some of the all time greats, and Terror Train is defiantly one of the greats. It may not be better than Halloween or Friday the 13th but it does have it's own charm and is pretty original. Any fan of slashers for this time period will enjoy this movie as it has everything you want like boobs, booze and a fair amount of slashing. This Dvd is a recommended purchase, just remember "Don't waste money on a return fare. You won't be coming back!

Review by Jason

Rating: C