Better Than It Had To Be
Lets just start off with a blanket statement that is unequivocal; I typically DESPISE "slasher" films. Oh, I worship every frame of Halloween (1978, which is classic cinema period) and had fun seeing Friday the 13th (1980) for the first time and going BOO! But I don't go to see "dead teenager" movies, don't rent them, and don't care. I didn't even like Red Dragon with Ralph Fiennes as a very worthy screen monster; I don't want to get to know mad killers, I want to see them smacked over the head with a coal shovel and done away with.
I first saw Terror Train quite by chance -- sleepover party at a friends in 1981 at the age of 14 where a bottle got passed around. Everyone else zonked out; I snuck upstairs to watch HBO on his parent's big screen TV set, and what did they happen to show, but Terror Train.
I had never seen a movie like it before. We had whispered to each other in the hallways of our middle school about Jason Vorhees and his mad mother, but I had...
Terror Train on Blu-Ray - a classic gets the HD treatment, but the results are mixed
It can be a challenge to review Blu-ray releases on Amazon. Theater reviews, VHS reviews, DVD reviews, digital copies - they often all end up under the same collection of feedback. I tend to rate the films themselves with the initial star rating, and cover the specifics of the medium I am reviewing in the body of the review. So, considered alongside the other films of the slasher genre, Terror Train is easily 4 star film, in my opinion. If you appreciate 1980s horror and understand the mechanics of film making at the time, this is easily one of the better entries of the period. The Blu-ray from Shout! Factory, is, however, a bit disappointing when considered alongside some of their other recent releases. I would probably give the disc three stars. It is worth buying, but if you are trying to decide between this movie and Shout! Factory's recent releases of The Funhouse, Halloween II or Halloween III, Humanoids from the Deep or Piranha, I would place this title at the back of...
Party Pooper...
Jamie Lee Curtis (Halloween, Halloween 2, The Fog) plays a college gal who is tricked into playing a sick joke (involving a cadaver) on a freshman frat pledge. Three years later, all is forgotten, as the fraternity brothers and their girlfriends hop aboard a rented steam train for a big New Year's Eve costume bash. Little do they know, someone has killed one of their pals and taken his place! So, one by one, he fools his victims into getting close enough to kill. Then, he puts on their costume and assumes their identity (It's a neat trick, and is similar in effect to the scene in Halloween where P.J. Soles mistakes Michael for her boyfriend)! Jamie Lee is convincing enough to make up for some of the shabby acting around her. Ben Johnson (Sugarland Express) is solid as the concerned conductor. David Copperfield is only mildly annoying as the magician (what else?). TERROR TRAIN chugs along at an enjoyable pace, never stopping long enough to become tedious. I recommend it to all Jamie...
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