Terror Train

This article is about the film. For the song, see Touched by the Crimson King.

Terror Train
Theatrical poster for Terror Train
Directed by	Roger Spottiswoode
Produced by	Harold Greenberg
Written by	T. Y. Drake
Starring	Ben Johnson Jamie Lee Curtis Hart Bochner
Music by	John Mills-Cockell
Cinematography	John Alcott
Editing by	Anne Henderson
Studio	Astral Bellevue Pathé Sandy Howard Productions Triple T Productions
Distributed by	Astral Films 20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	October 3, 1980
Running time	97 minutes
Country	Canada United States
Language	English
Budget	$3,500,000
Box office	$8,000,000

Terror Train is a 1980 Canadian horror film, directed by Roger Spottiswoode and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, and David Copperfield.

Plot

While most of the students of Sigma Phi are celebrating their freshman year, some of them are playing an elaborate prank on Kenny Hampson (Derek MacKinnon), a shy and extremely awkward young man.The feisty group is composed of Alana (Jamie LeeCurtis), Doc (Hart Bochner), Mitchy (Sandee Currie AKA Sandra Warren), Jack (Anthony Sherwood), Mo (Timothy Webber), and Ed (Howard Busgang).Telling Kenny that Alana wants to sleep with him, they encourage their fragile subject up to a bedroom where his lovely consort is supposedly waiting for him. Kenny undresses - but when he pulls the curtain on the canopied bed...he finds a horrific sight. There is an actual corpse in the bed (one of the students has had access to the college's medical morgue). Needless to say, poor Kenny is pushed mercilessly from (decidedly) nerd territory into the lonely abyss of insanity. Three years later, said students (now seniors) are preparing for an elaborate graduation masquerade party on a chartered steam train. Ed, the school joker, is dressed in a Groucho Marx outfit.In the snowy cold, the last bunch of students are getting on the train, when they see poor Ed falling to the ground with a sword through him. Everyone naturally thinks this is a prank and they laugh it off. But it's no joke. A killer is among them - and he changes into Ed's costume and dumps the body on the tracks.On the locomotive, everyone is in good spirits. Hired for the entertainment is a mysterious magician named Ken (David Copperfield) and his pretty assistant. Among the revelers are a beautiful young girl played by rock star Prince's then-protege and main squeeze, sex crooner Vanity (billed D.D. Winters in the credits). In a car to themselves, the group of friends discuss the prank on Kenny and how they were almost expelled from school because of it.Alana comes in and tells them it's not funny, because the poor kid was put in a hospital. It was three years ago, however...so they forget about it and open some champagne.Because the killer is wearing the Groucho costume, no one knows that Ed is missing. "Groucho" tries to entice Mitchy into a bathroom but Jack comes along dressed in a lizard disguise and distracts them.Mitchy disappears and Jack unwittingly invites the person he thinks is Ed into the bathroom for a drink. The killer promptly smashes Jack's head against the mirror.Two couples are hanging out together. Doc and Mitchy, and Mo and Alana are smoking pot and enjoying themselves. Alana thinks the party was her boyfriend's idea, but Doc tells her he came up with it. Upset that she didn't know, Alana leaves the cabin.She's annoyed because she doesn't fully trust Doc and thinks that anytime he wants to have fun, someone gets hurt. Mo follows her and as he leaves, he turns around and tells Doc "I'll get you for this." Alana tries to use the bathroom but the door is locked and she notices that someone broke a bottle inside. Later, the seniors are treated to a kind of disco magic show from Ken and his assistant. Doc and Mo are perplexed because neither of them hired the entertainer.Carne the conductor (Ben Johnson) uses a key to open the locked bathroom and finds Jack's body. When he brings another crewmember back to take a look, the killer has cleaned up the blood and changed into Jack's costume. Slumped on the floor, he looks up in a groggy state and appears to be drunk.Now dressed as a lizard, he goes after Mitchy. He strangles her and cuts her throat in one of the sleeping compartments. This time, the conductor finds the body and shows Alana. When Mo is discovered dead, the train is brought to a halt. Everyone is told to get off so the crew can search for the killer and take a roll call. Meanwhile, Doc and Alana have figured out that everyone killed was in on the prank three years before...and that Kenny Hampson must be the killer. Looking through a yearbook, they discover that he wanted to be a magician. Alana wants to warn the others - but Doc locks himself in a cabin, telling her "every man for himself." Nice.However, he isn't so sure he's safe. He becomes paranoid, believing that the killer is in the room with him. Slowly he gets up and checks all the closets and cabinets. There's nothing there.When he sits down on the seat in the cabin, he thinks he sees something under the bed across from him. As he leaps up to check it out, a hand grabs his leg from under the seat.Doc scrambles to get away. The killer puts his hand on his shoulder and for a second, Doc thinks it's Mitchy. He's killed when his neck is cut open.As the train is loaded with passengers again, Alana finds Carne and tells him the magician is the killer. She takes him back to Doc's cabin to show him the yearbook. When they enter the room, they find a bloody mess. Carne opens an overhead compartment and Doc's decapitated body falls out followed by his head.Ken's magic helper is concerned and expresses her concern for their safety to him. He tells her that she shouldn't have left the car. While the magician is in a back room preparing his act, Carne manages to get the assistant away from him.The conductor then seals off the car. When he returns later, Ken has disappeared.Having successfully herded the students safely to one end of the train, they begin the search for the magician but can't find him. Alana is in a cabin by herself. The killer is now wearing Doc's monk costume and a grotesque mask.Carrying an ax, he enters the room and strikes at her. But Alana had put a doll in her place - and she comes up from behind and stabs him with a sword. He recovers and chases her into the conductor's car.Alana is unable to go any further...and he catches up to her and slams her head against the wall. Alana breaks free and runs into an office in the car (which is caged off) and locks the door.The killer taunts her by shaking the cage...but Alana manages to pick up a letter opener and stab him in the face. She makes it out of the train car and calls out Kenny's name. As he tries to strangle her between cars, Alana kicks him and knocks him off the train...or so she thinks. She goes into the magician's cabin to look around - and to her horror, she finds his dismembered body stuffed in a suitcase.Alana runs to tell Carne, who appears to be sitting at his desk. He's got his head down and she tells him that she doesn't know who the killer is anymore. The conductor suddenly grabs her violently. He lifts his head and is wearing a translucent mask.When he takes it off, Alana see that it is indeed Kenny. He HAD been on the train all along...but disguised as the magician's female assistant!Alana tries to apologize to him for the prank and he asks if she'll kiss him. She lets him...but thinking back to his traumatic experience, Kenny goes bonkers. Carne arrives and knocks him with a shovel. Kenny's body falls out of the train to the snow below and he is finally killed.

Cast

• Ben Johnson as Carne, Train Conductor
• Jamie Lee Curtis as Alana Maxwell
• Hart Bochner as Doc Manley
• Sandee Currie as Mitchy
• Timothy Webber as Mo
• Derek MacKinnon as Kenny Hampson
• Anthony Sherwood as Jackson
• Joy Boushel as Pet
• D.D. Winters as Merry
• Greg Swanson as the Class President
• Howard Busgang as Ed
• David Copperfield as Ken the Magician

Production

To create the train for the film, the producers leased an actual Canadian Pacific Railway locomotive from the Steamtown Foundation. The train's engine was renumbered from its original 1293 to 1881, and, along with five passenger cars, painted black with silver stripes. Afterward, the Steamtown Foundation reverted the engine back to its original number and had it restored to a historic color and lettering scheme. As of February, 2002, Canadian Pacific Railway No. 1293 continued to be an "operable locomotive."

It was filmed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada from November 21 to December 23, 1979. Terror Train was the first motion picture directed by Spottiswoode, who would go on to make such films as Tomorrow Never Dies, Turner & Hooch, and Air America.

Cinematographer John Alcott devised a unique method of lighting Terror Train. He rewired the entire train and mounted individual dimmers on the exteriors of the carriage cars. Utilizing a variety of bulbs with different wattages, and controlling them with the external dimmers, Alcott could light the set in a very fast, efficient manner. At times, Alcott also used medical lights - "pen torches" - to hand light the actors' faces.

Taking a cue from director John Ford, veteran actor Ben Johnson originally asked director Spottiswoode to give his character Carne less dialogue in Terror Train, rather than more.

Derek MacKinnon, who played Kenny, played eleven roles in Terror Train, including Kenny.

Release

The film was released theatrically in the United States by 20th Century Fox in October 1980. It grossed an estimate $8,000,000 at the box office.

The film was first released on VHS home video in 1988 by CBS/Fox Video. The film was released twice on DVD by 20th Century Fox; once in 2004 as a single edition release and again in 2008 in a triple pack alongside Candyman 2 and the original The Fog.

In March 2010, the film screened at the New Beverly Cinema.

External links

• Terror Train at the Internet Movie Database
• Terror Train at AllRovi