Terror Train *** (1980, Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner) – Classic Movie Review 10,624

Director Roger Spottiswoode’s debut is the 1980 Canadian horror thriller Terror Train, a cultish, above-average stalk and slash movie, featuring Jamie Lee Curtis – then the cinema’s best screamer since Fay Wray – as one of a group of college graduates enjoying a New Year’s Eve spree costume party on a moving train to celebrate their graduation, when they are terrorised by an alienated masked killer classmate.

Three years earlier, their college fraternity prank went wrong and a student ended up in the mental asylum. The killer is disguised in the costumes of the victims, each time putting on the costume of the last victim.

Terror Train is boosted by Spottiswoode’s intense direction, John Alcott’s stylish, atmospheric camerawork and a screenplay by T Y Drake with enough red herrings to keep it involving. David Copperfield is the stage and TV magician, with not too much of an acting stretch, playing The Magician in the film.

Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner, Derek McKinnon, Sandee Currie, Timothy Webber, Anthony Sherwood, and Howard Busgang also star.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,624

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