A prelude shows a prank in which a socially awkward and sexually inexperienced student is lured into having his first sexual encounter. What he doesn’t know is that the woman waiting for him in bed is actually a corpse stolen by medical students. On discovering this, Kenny becomes unhinged and is rightly traumatised.
Three years later the same students sans Kenny travel together on a train that doubles as a costume party. They start to be picked off one by one. Who could the killer be?
It’s pretty obvious who it is but y’know…
This is one of the horror films that starred Jamie Lee Curtis that helped cement her status as The Scream Queen after Halloween in 1978. Of all of her horror vehicles from this time, I have to say Terror Train is my least favourite. It’s beautifully lit, with a gorgeous colour palate but remains strangely cold for me. A cross-country on a sleeper train could have been the perfect locale for a horror film but for me, the movie is surprisingly suspense free and not very atmospheric at all.
Slasher films in those days offered more than just kills for their audiences and there’s plenty of teen drama between the characters and even a magician in the guise of David Copperfield to add something different to proceedings.
But Terror Train is certainly substandard when compared to Halloween 2, Prom Night, The Fog and, of course, the first Halloween.
A far too mediocre entry in the slasher sub-genre.
Grade- C-
meathookcinema.com 