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Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Three years after a fraternity prank on a virginal pre-med student ends badly, with the unfortunate young man apparently carted off to a mental hospital, the same hedonistic classmates responsible for the gag board an excursion train on New Year's Eve dressed in costumes. Before the train even gets rolling, one of the kids is killed and his mask stolen by a psychopath, who stalks the others in cramped corridors, sleeper cars and the office/locker-room. Despite a fine pedigree, with direction by Roger Spottiswoode and cinematography from John Alcott, this extremely muddled, non-scary slasher flick is awfully thin and incredibly dull. Ben Johnson plays the train conductor who finds a costumed corpse in the bathroom, but is then bamboozled by the killer who takes the place of the deceased and pretends to be drunk (but what about the blood on the sink and on the body?). Jamie Lee Curtis, overstretching her stint as the '80s Scream Queen, does nothing here she didn't already do in "Prom Night", released a few months prior in 1980. Magician David Cooperfield supplies the evening's entertainment, but what is the point of staging magic tricks in a movie? They can easily be faked, much like the acting, writing and directing in "Terror Train". *1/2 from ****

Spoiler Alert!!! I bought this at F.Y.E. not expecting much because I'm a slasher movie fan who realized that these kinds of movies are getting pretty ridiculous. The main reason I decided to pick this one out was that I noticed it has Jaime Lee Curtis the most well known scream queen. This film really wasn't all that good as a storyline I mean I'm still confused on why the heck the killer just snapped and decides to kill people, I'm still confused on what I saw in the opening, and I'm still confused at what this film was trying to do. There was barely any killing, the characters were unlikable, and the killer's identity was pretty obvious with that opening sequence. This film wasn't the worst slasher film ever but it was pretty bad compared to slasher films like Halloween, Friday the 13th, and Nightmare on Elm Street. I decided to give this film 4 out of 10 because I liked the costumes, I liked Jamie Lee Curtis, and I liked the setting. Everything else though is just eh.

As freshmen in college, a group of friends play a nasty prank on pledge Kenny Hampson (Mckinnon) That goes horribly wrong and lands him in a mental hospital. Four years later the group of friends boards a Train on New Years Eve, and Hampson is there ready to stalk and kill his former classmates. There is a costume party going on and Hampson wears several different masks as he slices his way through the group. Killings include impalement by sword, Slashed throat, decapitation to name a few. Alana (Curtis) the most innocent of the group since she didn't really know what kind of prank was being played is left for last. First time director Roger Spottiswoode uses moody camera-work from excellent cinematographer John Alcott, and decent sets ups to raise Terror Train above a lot of the slashers being produced in the early 1980's. In many ways it is sort of the same old stuff, but Spottiswoode's sets ups to the deaths, and the closed confines of the train make for some good atmosphere. All thought there isn't any doubt who the killer is, the masked character doesn't speak and is quite creepy. The movie bogs down in the middle with a crappy magic act done to disco music with real life magician David Copperfield (who seems lost here), and too many scenes of the kids dancing and partying. It makes up for it with a tense final 20 minutes as Alana is the last one left and is chased through the train. A certain highlight comes when Alana locks herself in a caged room with the killer trying to get at her! Jamie Lee Curtis is terrific as she shrieks and fights for her life in what is her best Scream queen role outside of the original "Halloween". Ben Johnson as the conductor brings a professionalism the film needed and Hart Bochner is extra slimy as the head prankster Doc. Overall an above average slasher film from the golden age of the slasher.

Jamie Lee Curtis stars as one of many graduating college students who board a train to celebrate, but a killer with a grudge(for a cruel prank used against him four years earlier) disrupts the festivities, as he begins murdering the passengers, and donning their costumes(part of the party) in order to fool them. Magician David Copperfield plays a magician(naturally!) and veteran actor Ben Johnson plays the no-nonsense train conductor, determined to get the killer.Film builds some atmosphere in the snowy wastes outside the train(it is wintertime) and Ben Johnson is appealing,(most of the characters are not) but is otherwise dreary and predictable, and sometimes defies logic(killer seems to be a real magician!) Good ending cannot save it.