Easily the best New Years'-themed horror film- not that there's a lot of competition in that department- but also one of my all-time favorite slasher films, period, Terror Train was one of many such films made in the wake of the enormous success of John Carpenter's Halloween, and part of the whole "Holiday Horror" sub-genre of slashers.
However, this particular film boasted Halloween's leading lady, Jamie Lee Curtis, at the height of her Scream Queen days, coming off of The Fog and Prom Night and about to head into her final two films in the genre for a long while, Road Games and Halloween II. In addition, it boasts an unusually talented cast- many of which were relative unknowns at the time (and still are, in some cases) - and an excellent crew that help to make it a cut above most films within the genre.
It all began as a dream, fittingly enough. Producer Daniel Grodnik had watched the films Halloween and Silver Streak within the same week, and had a dream combining the two. He pitched it to his girlfriend, who deemed it "terrible" and he quickly scribbled down the idea, along with the potential title: Terrible Train.
The following morning, he wisely changed the title to Terror Train and pitched it to fellow producer Sandy Howard, along with ideas for poster art (a train with a skull on the front) and a tag line ("There was Psycho and that was it... until now"). Howard loved it and encouraged Grodnik to explore the idea immediately. The next day, he typed up a 23-page treatment, brought it back to Howard and the two made a deal.
An astonishing four months later, the film started shooting in Montreal, Canada, using an actual working excursion train, Canadian Pacific Railway, No. 1293, which was still operative as of the early 2000's. As Curtis had just come off another Canadian horror flick, Prom Night, she was able to go right into shooting immediately, scoring a coup for the producers, along with the casting of legendary Oscar-winning character actor Ben Johnson (The Last Picture Show, The Wild Bunch).
Indeed, Prom Night director Paul Lynch was approached to direct as well, but balked at doing another slasher film so soon, and went off to do the TV horror anthology Darkroom instead. The gig eventually went to former editor Roger Spottiswoode, who had worked on such classics as Straw Dogs and The Getaway, the latter of which Johnson also starred in, which is what provided the director with an “in” to get him to do the film.
The film marked his motion picture directorial debut, and Spottiswoode would go on to direct such successful films as Under Fire, The Best of Times, Shoot to Kill, Turner & Hooch, Air America, the award-winning TV movies Hiroshima and And the Band Played On and the James Bond flick Tomorrow Never Dies. T.Y. Drake, a songwriter-turned-screenwriter (he wrote songs for The Kingston Trio, among others), did the honors on the screenplay.
Behind the camera was none other than legendary cinematographer John Alcott, who did the honors on no less than four Stanley Kubrick classics: 2001: A Space Odyssey, A Clockwork Orange, Barry Lyndon (for which he won an Oscar) and the horror opus The Shining.
He also shot big-budget Hollywood flicks like Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend, Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord of the Apes and No Way Out. However, Alcott wasn't above the occasional somewhat trashy B-movie, as evidenced by the likes of Vice Squad, The Beastmaster and White Water Summer. His work here plays like a combination of Barry Lyndon's low-but-crystal-clear lighting and The Shining's claustrophobic, isolated settings, which alone makes this a cut above most slasher films.
Not hurting matters is the talented cast, which, in addition to Curtis and Johnson, includes several up-and-coming stars-in-the-making. Chief among them is a young D.D. Winters, aka Denise Matthews, here making her first major film debut, after a brief turn as a background dancer in the movie Klondike Fever. If the names don't ring a bell, that's because shortly thereafter, she started dating the legendary Prince, who re-dubbed her "Vanity" and considered her to be the "female version" of himself.
Discovering she could sing as well, Prince put together a girl group to support her, which he called Vanity 6, even though there were only three girls in the band! Still, it beats the original band name Prince considered: The Hookers. (He also toyed with the idea of calling Matthews "Vagina," but she understandably balked.)
The band scored a huge hit with the immortal "Nasty Girl," but sadly fell apart when Vanity went solo and jumped over to Motown Records, bailing on Prince just before she was supposed to shoot the classic Purple Rain. She was replaced with actress/singer Patricia Kotero, who Prince dubbed "Apollonia," re-christening the band Apollonia 6.
Vanity then went on to score several solid hits, including "Pretty Mess" (about a woman's delight in her man's premature ejaculation!) and "Under the Influence." She also starred in the immortal The Last Dragon (Sho Nuff!), Never Too Young to Die (with KISS rocker Gene Simmons), 52 Pick Up, Deadly Illusion, Action Jackson, Neon City, South Beach and Kiss of Death.
I had the biggest crush on her back in the day, and her poster adorned my wall for the longest time, much to my parents' chagrin, as she was pretty scantily-clad. Sadly, she died not too long ago in 2016, of renal failure, after having long since turned her life around and quitting drugs in the early 90's and subsequently becoming a born-again Evangelical Christian. Alas, the extensive drug use finally caught up with her in the end, as it was a near-death kidney failure that caused her to give up drugs in the first place.
Another familiar face in the film is Hart Bochner, as the nefarious Doc, who horror fans will likely know from Urban Legends: Final Cut and the 2013 Carrie remake. Like Vanity, Bochner was born in Ontario, Canada, and was coming off of two critically-acclaimed films, the Ernest Hemingway adaptation Islands in the Stream and Breaking Away when he made this film.
He would go on to star in films like Rich & Famous, Supergirl, The Wild Life, Making Mr. Right, Die Hard, Apartment Zero, The Innocent, Bulworth, Anywhere But Here and Rules Don't Apply. Bochner was also a familiar face on TV, appearing in the acclaimed mini-series East of Eden, The Sun Also Rises (another Hemingway adaptation) and War & Remembrance; as well as guest spots on shows like Crossing Jordan, Grey's Anatomy, Scandal and Criminal Minds.
As Doc's best bud and Curtis' Alana's love interest, there's Timothy Webber, who has enjoyed a huge amount of success as a character actor over the years that continues to this day. Another Canadian, he's been in several cult favorites, including the John Irving adaptation The Hotel New Hampshire, Millennium, Midnight Matinee, Leaving Normal, My Father's Angel, Seventh Son and two of the recent Planet of the Apes films.
TV fans will also recognize him from shows like Friday the 13th: The Series, The X-Files, Millennium (not to be confused with the movie), The Outer Limits, Taken (the sci-fi mini-series, not the TV version of the Liam Neeson movie), Supernatural, Fringe, Falling Skies, The Exorcist, Once Upon a Time, A Series of Unfortunate Events and the criminally underrated Loudermilk (he's the one with a beard and a sex doll, lol).
And, of course, there's enormously popular real-life magician David Copperfield, as, um, The Magician. Perhaps needless to say, given his hammy turn here, his acting career was decidedly short-lived, mostly limited to playing himself in movies like Ready to Wear and The Incredible Burt Wonderstone, but his TV specials were wildly popular in the 80's and 90's, and he was the rare illusionist to be honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He remains the most successful commercial magician in history, according to Forbes magazine.
Other notable cast members include the sexy Sandee Currie (Curtains, The Magic Show- featuring another popular magician, Doug Henning) as Mitchy, Doc's girlfriend; Anthony Sherwood (Scanners, Death Ship, Eternal Evil) as Jackson, aka the Lizard Man; Howard Busgang (The Funny Farm, Killer Party) as the wise-cracking Ed, aka the short-lived Groucho; Greg Swanson (Meatballs, The Shape of Things to Come) as the Class President; and cutie Joy Boushel (Humongous, The Fly) as the oddly-named Pet, she of the very high-waisted pants.
Last but definitely not least, there's Derek McKinnon as Kenny Hampson, the poor geek traumatized by the sickest prank ever in the beginning of the film, which leads to his turning into a complete psycho- but also a really clever one. (Spoiler alert!) Hiding in plain sight as the killer, he is able to quick-change into a wide variety of costumes, most of them donned after he kills the current occupant.
But his most impressive costume of all is that of the Magician's Assistant, in which he appears in drag. I can't tell you how many times I watched this as a kid and forgot that was him until the end, but once it stuck, I was able to enjoy the film in a completely different way. I'm not sure how he was able to change clothes so fast, much less cover his tracks so well, but then again- he is a magician.
But if you can get past all that, it's a great performance, with McKinnon doing a remarkable job of acting with his eyes, given that he spends much of his time behind a mask. Interestingly, McKinnon really was a Canadian drag queen and stage actor, which no doubt played a big part in his getting the role in the first place. Despite his fine work here, his screen career was short-lived, limited to a small handful of movies, including My Lovely Bank, Breaking All the Rules and Family Motel, in which he also appeared in drag.
I suppose that modern audiences might have a bone to pick with the filmmakers for making the killer a drag queen, but get over it- it's a great twist, and most people won't see it coming. Though I suspect McKinnon's fellow drag queens won't be fooled, even if they don't know the twist. Still, even beyond that, the notion of a killer donning the costume of his victims is a nifty one.
Terror Train is just a fun movie, from start to finish. The set-up is classic slasher tropes: a nerdy guy, picked on by his classmates, has a ill-advised (and quite frankly, sick) prank played on him by some Frat guys, which goes horribly awry and turns him into a raving lunatic. We then move forward a few years to the last big party of the main characters' Senior year, with another nifty twist: it all takes place on a train. As Doc says: no one can leave- and many don't... alive, that is.
While the body count is low, and the gore quotient is minimal, with admittedly slipshod effects- i.e. the beyond fake decapitated head- thanks to the solid acting, cinematography and decent script, the end result is easily one of the best slasher films ever. Sometimes quality trumps quantity, as it were.
I don't watch this one every year- I like to go back and forth between this and either New Year's Evil (which admittedly makes more of the New Years' gambit) or Bloody New Year (ditto), but the great thing about it is that really you can enjoy it anytime of the year, and it doesn't feel quite as dated as many slasher films, that cooler-than-thou lounge band, Crime, notwithstanding.
It's genuinely atmospheric and creepy, and makes the most of its unique location, with lots of shadowy places for the killer to hide, as best evidenced in the scene with Doc where he locks himself in the cabin and keeps noticing darkened places the killer could be lurking and investigates them one by one.
It's also pretty suspenseful, between the claustrophobic quarters of the train closing in on everyone as they realize people are being killed to the great stalk scene with Curtis towards the end where she's cornered in a wooden storage room as the killer terrorizes her. I also love the bit where the killer creeps along the window in that spooky old man mask.
Add to that a decent score by John Mills-Cockell, a memorable poster (see top of article), Veronica (aka Penny) Hadfield's eye-catching costume design (she was also the art director on My Bloody Valentine and Superstition) and that phenomenal cinematography by Alcott, and you truly have a classic slasher on your hands that ranks with the best of them. It's no Halloween, admittedly- what is?- but it's up there, to be sure.
By all means, check this one out! 🚉🚅💨😡🔪😱
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