The Sigma Phi fraternity is hosting a New Year’s Eve Party. As part of the festivities the fraternity is requiring its pledges to have sex with someone before the night is over. Doc (Hart Bochner) decides to play a prank on one of the pledges, Kenny Hampson (Derek McKinnon). Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis) is reluctantly in on the prank. Kenny is sent into a room to have sex with Alana. Instead Doc has placed a rotting cadaver in the bed. Kenny is traumatized by the experience and ends up in a psychiatric hospital.
Three years later those involved in the prank are having another New Year’s party. This time it is a costume party on board a train. Doc is still an ass. Alana is still pissed at Doc. Alana’s boyfriend Mo (Timothy Weber) is Doc’s best friend and Doc’s girlfriend Mitchy (Sandee Currie) is Alana’s best friend so Alana is stuck associating with Doc even though she would rather eat razor blades.
Unbeknownst to everyone involved, Kenny has killed fraternity brother and class clown Ed (Howard Busgang) and taken his place. Dressed in Ed’s Groucho Marxx disguise Kenny boards the train. Disguised as Ed’s character Kenny is free to wander around the train. His first run-in is with another fraternity brother, Jackson (Anthony Sherwood), who is dressed as a lizard. Kenny kills Jackson in one of the lavatories and locks the door.
Train conductor Carne (Ben Johnson) finds Jackson’s body but when he returns with reinforcements Jackson is stumbling drunk but alive. Mitchy takes the drunken lizard away and Carne is baffled. He swears he saw blood all over the room and that the lizard was dead. It’s not till later when Carne finds the next dead person, Mitchy. Now he realizes that the drunken lizard was not actually Jackson but the killer and he is still wandering around the train.
At that moment Alana shows up and Carne tells her that her friend is dead. Alana begins to piece together the only person she knows could be out for revenge. It’s not until several more students are killed that Alana knows for sure it is Kenny.
“Terror Train” was released in 1980 and was directed by Roger Spottiswoode. The movie is your basic slasher movie. It is a Canadian made film made in Montreal with mostly Canadian actors so a lot of the actors you may not have heard of. It doesn’t matter, they are all spoiled, stupid college kids and you want them all to die.
Apparently Daniel Grodnick got the idea for Terror Train from a dream after having seen the movies “Halloween” and “Silver Streak” all in the same weekend.
Derek McKinnon said his favorite scene was killing Hart Bochner's character Doc because Bochner just irritated the crap out of him during filming. Apparently Bochner was just as annoying off screen as he was on.
As far as slasher movies go it’s decent. There wasn’t as many slashings as you would normally think since there is a whole train full of potential slashees. Still Jamie Lee was just off of doing “Prom Night” and is in fine Scream Queen form. Ben Johnson is also good as the train conductor Carne. David Copperfield has a part as a… guess what… magician. Slasher movies are never meant to be Oscar material but it’s still entertaining enough to enjoy seeing dead frat boys and sorority chicks and face it, they pretty much deserved it.
The train used in the film, Canadian Pacific Railway No. #1293 was built by the Canadian Locomotive Company in 1948. It was a type 4-6-2, class G5d light weight “Pacific” locomotive. After 8 years of service it was retired from service. In 1964 it was purchased by the Green Mountain Railroad in Vermont. It was then sold to Steamtown Foundation in 1973 and used as an excursion train. The engine was dubbed “The Spirit of Ethan Allen”. In 1980 it was renumbered #1881 for the film, painted black with silver stripes and leased to a Hollywood Company for the picture “Terror Train”. The last known owner of the #1293 was the Ohio Central Railroad.