SummaryThree years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
SummaryThree years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year's Eve party aboard a moving train.
1980 must have been a wild year for Jamie Lee Curtis, think of THE FOG and PROM NIGHT and now this Canadian train slasher. She definitely deserves her title as Scream Queen when she's running away from the killer in the finale. Before that, we get David Copperfield(!) and that coked up guy from DIE HARD, Kubrick's DP, and have I mentioned that this was directed by aRoger Spottiswoode who would later go on to direct a Brosnan BOND. The opening of TERROR TRAIN reminded me of PROM NIGHT and SLAUGHTER HIGH: a nerd character gets pranked, goes insane, and goes on to kill his foes a couple of years later. Nothing special in the story department. I liked the costume changes of the killer, especially that he performs in drag and no one notices, the train/snow setting is great, the characters aren't stupid (just drunk), and the whole vibe is just really entertaining. The film does drag in the middle but picks up the pace going into the finale. The kills aren't great, very pre-FRIDAY THE 13TH, in that they don't show much violence at all. There isn't any sex either, although JLC is rocking her pre-AIDS open relationship. TERROR TRAIN is an entertaining time capsule of a very specific point in horror film history that is way better than PROM NIGHT. (But not as awesome as PROM NIGHT 2)
É ok, tem uma ótima ideia mas não é tão bem aproveitada assim (Um remake bem feito seria muito bom), as mortes são só ok também, não tem muito o que falar, eu gostei mas queria que fosse melhor. Só recomendo pra quem é muito fã do subgênero slasher.
The intention here was to make a thriller, a suspense movie about some people trapped on a train, waiting for an unknown killer to strike. The problem is that they don't do very much else except wait.
The premise - a crazed killer abused years before returns to wreak vengeance on the young - is so familiar that the audience can predict (and does: loudly) every "shock." [15 Oct 1980]
Terror Train is a curious hybrid that doesn't seem to know just what it wants to be. It has, I guess, few artistic pretensions, and yet it's not a rock-bottom-budget, schlock exploitation film.
The first and biggest problem that I had with this who-done-it slasher outing is that the picture quality is horrible. I don't know if it was the original or the DVD that I had but the exposure was terrible. All of the blacks ran into each other and it was difficult to see what was going on a lot of the time. Technical gripes aside this is not the worst teen slasher in the world, it is also not the best and that is the problem. It is stuck somewhere in the middle of a large field. It is not especially scary and the tension rarely amounts to anything. The killing is unimaginative and the characters are dull. First time round I didn't guess who the killer was but I did remember it for the second viewing years later. It is far from terrifying, it is much closer to mundane.
Waste of an hour and half plus the only good parts of this movie is Jamie, The Conductor, and the Magician but everything else is boring and bad. This Movie ****.
C’est en gros une espèce de ‘Souviens-toi l’été dernier’ ou autre ‘Scream’ bien avant que ces films débilos pour ados idiots et adulescents décadents deviennent à la mode (au moins pour un temps) puisque cette connerie remonte à 1980 ! on y découvre une jeunette bien mignonne là-dedans, à savoir Jamie Lee Curtis !
Il faut bien débuter quelque part, y compris dans ce nanar de crevard à la petite semaine au cours duquel des jeunes cons éméchés se font poignarder par un type masqué… dans un train ! mais ça ne suffit pas pour nous maintenir éveillé puisqu’il ne se passe rien en fait ou si peu…
Le film entier (à l’heure et demi syndicale) se traîne en effet comme un étudiant ivre mort (pléonasme) et drogué (double pléonasme) et se révèle complètement amorphe et inepte. Tellement inepte et vide que même en avance rapide, on ne tient pas jusqu’au bout ! c’est dire donc à quel point ce vieux navet avarié est nul à chier !