Terror Train is a 1980 Canadian horror film, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and stars Jamie Lee Curtis and Ben Johnson. It was filmed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from November 21 to December 23, 1979.
Plot
A college is celebrating New Year's and everybody is happy. One of the fraternities, Sigma Phi, decide to play a prank on a shy and awkward young man, pledge Kenny Hampson (Derek MacKinnion). Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis) is coerced into leading Kenny into a bedroom at the fraternity party under the pretense of having sex. However, when Kenny comes to the bed to kiss Alana, he instead finds a woman's corpse. The prank backfires horribly, and poor Kenny ends up in a mental ward.
Three years later, it's graduation time, and the members of the fraternities and sororities decide to have a costume party aboard a train trip to celebrate their graduation. The jokester of the group, Ed (Howard Busgang), is found run through with a sword, everybody thinks it's a joke while Ed falls dead. The unseen killer steals Ed's Groucho Marx costume and boards the train, disguised as him.
The guy who made up the cruel prank on Kenny, Doc Manley (Hart Bochner) boasts about how he set the prank up. But Alana walks in and tells him that it was a mean joke, reminding them all of poor Kenny's fate. The group decides to forget about it, and open a bottle of champagne. Meanwhile, Jackson (Anthony Sherwood) runs into the killer, who he thinks is Ed, brings him into the bathroom to get drunk, and is hurled into a mirror. Alana tries to get into the bathroom, but the door is locked, so she gets Carne (Ben Johnson), the train conductor, to unlock it. Inside is Jackson's body, with blood everywhere. Luckily, most of the other students are watching a performance by a magician named Ken (David Copperfield), so they don't know what's happening yet. Carne gets another crew member to take a look at it, but the killer has cleaned up all the blood and is now in Jackson's alien-lizard costume.
Now dressed as Jackson, the killer goes for Alana's best friend Mitchy. She wants to have a one night stand with him in a sleeping compartment, but as he fondles her breasts, she looks down to see Jack's severed hand on her. Before she can scream, the killer strangles her, and slits her throat. Alana and Carne discover her body shortly afterwards, yet the killer is still on the loose.
Next, Alana's boyfriend, Mo (Timothy Webber) is stabbed in the chest while watching the magician's show. This time, everybody knows about it as he was among a crowd of people, but no one saw who stabbed him. Doc pulls the emergency brake, but when the train doesn't stop, the conductor races to the cab of the locomotive and seeing no engine crew, slams the train into emergency. Everybody else on the train are told to get off so the crew can search for the killer and take roll call. Doc and Alana realize that Kenny is the killer and is getting revenge. Alana tries to warn everybody else, but Doc locks himself in a cabin, locking Alana out. As Alana gets off the train, Doc is confronted by the killer, now wearing Mitchy's witch costume.
As everybody gets back on the train, Alana and Carne discover Doc's body, along with his decapitated head. The killer has stolen Doc's monk costume as well. Now, Carne has herded the students on one side of the train, so he'll be able to find the killer. Alana begins to think the killer is the magician, as Kenny loved magic, but the magician has disappeared, presumed to have leapt off the train, as the door is open in his cabin. Alana is to stay in one of the locked cabins. But eventually, the killer (still in Mitchy's witch costume) finds Alana, and he chases her into the conductor's car. Alana locks herself in the conductor's office (which is caged off). The killer finds her, and she stabs him in the face with a Spindle (stationery). She runs out of the office and pushes the killer off the train.
Now relieved, she decides to walk over to the magician's cabin, and she discovers his dismembered body in a cabinet, realizing that he couldn't have been the killer. Alana runs into the baggage car and she finds Charley the brakeman sitting at his desk with his head down; but, Alana realizes it isn't Charley, but rather Kenny, dressed in the brakeman's uniform. He hadn't fallen from the train, and he wasn't the magician, but rather, dressed in drag as the magician's female assistant. He tells Alana to kiss him - exactly what Alana told Kenny the night of the prank - and when she does, Kenny goes crazy, reliving the fateful night. Before anything else can happen, however, Carne runs in with a shovel, and finally knocks Kenny out of the train, his body falling in a river.
Information
Halloween made Jamie Lee Curtis a young star; starring in three horror films in one year made her a "Scream Queen", (which was improvised in the movie Scream). Terror Train is probably the least remembered of these films. Released in the United States on October 3, 1980 by 20th Century Fox, the film probably suffered from overexposure of its main star. The Fog and Prom Night had already been released to theaters, and enjoyed some success at the height of the early 1980s horror craze. Terror Train was first released on VHS home video in 1988 by CBS/Fox Video. A DVD was finally released in 2004 and is available with different cover art than the original VHS version. Original VHS copies were fetching up to $30 USD on eBay before the DVD was available.
This was the first motion picture directed by Spottiswoode. He later went on to direct the films Tomorrow Never Dies, Turner & Hooch, and Air America. He is an Emmy Award winning director, who has also won several other directing honors.
The train was rented from US museum Steamtown Foundation, pulled by one of the manu CPR light Pacific, at the time located in Bellows Falls, Vermont. Many of the cars were damaged during filming by cutting holes to allow filming within the various compartments, and the movie portrayal does not accurately reflect proper operating practices.
Cast
External links
