Reader Recommendation: Terror Train

“I guess I'll go with Terror Train.  You must, must, must see this slasher.  Jamie Lee Curtis and David Copperfield??  Copperfield should be enough to pull you in.  It's one of [the Naked Eskimo]'s all time favorite slashers.  Plus, it takes place in a train!  Claustrophobia!  It's also an instant play from Netflix.  You wouldn't have to wait for it!”--Recommended by the Bodacious Barbarella Cult

I did not wait for Terror Train. In fact, I’ve decided to do a new sort of Netflixing where I close my eyes, press a bunch of buttons and hit ‘ok’ when I feel inclined. And that my friends is how I decided to finally watch the infamous Canadian pleasure, Terror Train.

Quick Plot: Like every ‘80s slasher, Terror Train begins with a prank gone wrong as premed fraternity brothers haze Kenny, a nerd (identified as such by his thick glasses, naturally) by cock teasing him with Alana, played by original scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis (save your hermaphrodite jokes for the showers boys). Due to some confusingly hung drapery and Kenny’s overreaction to kissing a corpse, the poor geek gets the crazies and we flash forward three years.

To celebrate their last winter break, the now senior fraternity members and their gal pals don Halloween costumes and take a rather awesome old fashioned train ride, complete with uncomfortable cots, tiny bathrooms, a band composed of high fashion hipsters who don't play their own instruments, and...get this, David Copperfield!

The rails are rocking harder than Night Train to Terror  (not true; nothing rocks harder than Night Train to Terror) but before you can say all aboard, a mysterious masked man has swiped a frat boy’s Groucho Marx disguise and begun a slow but steady killing spree of some of the past prank participants. The only person that seems to be actively doing anything about it is the kindly conductor Carne, played by lovable presence Ben Johnson. 

I won’t spoil the twist of Terror Train, a neat little plot point that’s both slightly predictable but really not. People die. The killer is revealed. I giggle. And Jamie Lee Curtis cries. You know the story.

High Points

You can’t not love the setting, an antiquated (unless you travel through Russia) train that instantly offers plenty of claustrophobic and inescapable titular terror

In these kinds of movies, it’s always good to have a hateable antagonist due for a painful demise and Terror Train packs a doozie with Hart Bochner’s Doc. With his smarmy attitude and girl-shriek, Bochner (who later went on to play another smarmy doomed fella in Die Hard and, more importantly, directed one of the best Jon Lovitz vehicles of all time, High School High) is like a slightly taller Tom Cruise, possible homosexuality and all.

(You sir, are no match for Hans Gruber.)

Low Points

Aside from its fantastic location, there’s just nothing that different about Terror Train to make it overly memorable. Sure, it’s better in quality than Slaughter High  or Graduation Day, but just about every character and plot point feels like it was taken out of a slasher recipe book and served on an assembly line-run cafeteria

Lessons Learned

The best magic trick of all involves super fast nail polish removal

Shaking your dead and bleeding friend generally does not bring him back to life. Perhaps that’s something learned in med school, as opposed to undergraduate university

Much like Jamie Lee, David Copperfield tragically missed out on a promising career as a disco dancer

Dear nerds of the world: I don’t know how many movies can support this before you take note, but please believe me when I say the gorgeous popular girl does not want to sleep with you and if she does, she probably isn’t going to tell the whole school about it in order to lure you to her bed

Rent/Bury/Buy

Terror Train is the very epitome of all that’s good and bad about the ‘80s slasher. Each character fits the exact role card required (good girl, slutty girl, slightly bad girl, bad handsome boy, likable chubby dude, wimpy boyfriend, second kill black guy, etc.) and with the exception of a slightly bizarre reveal, nothing really surprises the modern viewer. That being said, any slasher fan will nostalgically grin at seeing JLC cut some dance moves and a masked baddie ax his way through bratty coeds. The film is currently streaming on Instant Watch which is pretty much where it should be seen. Not really worth a whole lot of energy investment, but vital for those slasher completists.