TERROR TRAIN (1980)

 

PHENOMENALITY: *uncanny*
MYTHICITY: *fair*
FRYEAN MYTHOS: *drama*
CAMPBELLIAN FUNCTION: *psychological*

Like PROM NIGHT, which Jamie Lee Curtis filmed the same year, TERROR TRAIN sought to "take a ride" on the fame of her breakout slasher-flick HALLOWEEN. But though TRAIN isn't any more complex psychologically than PROM NIGHT, it's a much better constructed thriller, in part because TRAIN was the directorial debut of Roger "TOMORROW NEVER DIES" Spottiswode.

Happily the script dispenses with the tedious red-herring plot of PROM NIGHT, placing all its energies toward depicting the vendetta of the resident psycho. Shy fraternity pledge Kenny is victimized by a humiliating prank and goes bonkers, being confined in an asylum thereafter. Three years later, all the members of the prank-cabal are still at the same college, though only one participant, Alana (Curtis), evinces any guilt about her past actions.

The fraternities and sororities involved in Kenny's pranking end up celebrating Christmas by holding a costume party aboard a train. Unbeknownst to the students, Kenny has escaped confinement and has found a way to assume another identity while on board. In addition, when he begins his killing spree, he often assumes the costume of his victim. Of all the costumes Kenny assumes, the one in the movie poster, a fiendish version of Groucho Marx, has given this particular slasher a minor iconic fame.

The killing-scenes are much better, in part because the script places more emphasis on how thoroughly most of the pranksters have forgotten the effects of their petty deed. And though the idea of "HALLOWEEN on a train" sounds like a banal movie-pitch, the constant rumbling motion of the train is often spookier than any number of creepy old house sounds. Late in the film, when the passengers have become aware of the serial killer's presence among them, the train stops in the middle of a snowy wilderness, and it's borne in to the panicky students that they have nowhere to go but back to the train with the mystery murderer.

Curtis once again makes an appealing viewpoint character, though it should be noted that in 1980 the trope of "the Final Girl" had not become so automatically expected. Thus it may be a shock to some when Evil Kenny is defeated not by Alana, but by the crusty old train conductor (Ben Johnson).