OCTOBER 22, 2014 1:18PM
All Aboard ?
TERROR TRAIN
Released:October 1980
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Writers: T.Y. Drake
Notable Cast: Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, David Copperfield, Vanity
Plot: A masked killer targets six college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong three years earlier and who are currently throwing a large New Year's Eve costume party aboard a moving train. (source: imdb)
Commentary: It appears this may be the Week o' Jamie Lee. Having talked about some of her less famous slasher output, I now bring Terror Train to your attention.
Let me tell you a story. In the early 1980's we were new to the USA (like, probably 1981). But we spent some time in California with business associates of my dad. I was an awkward preteen, and the business associate had a daughter my age.
Visiting their home, she offered me a Coke, put a KISS 45 single on the record player, and proceeded to tell me the whole entire plot of Terror Train.
And that, readers, is how I knew America was the land of foxy girls, rock and roll and horror movies....
Anyways. An adult viewing of Terror Train is entertaining and nothing more. The plot is solid, if the twist at the end rather hokey. Like many other of the films I'm discussing, you can be amused by the music, the fashions, and how young and lovely some of these stars were (or still are).
Besides JLC, the film has Hart Bochner, a very handsome actor who's had a solid career (he was the villain in Die Hard), and who starred in an amazing film, Apartment Zero. I highly recommend it.
It also stars magician superstar David Copperfield! Oh yes. He's on board the Terror Train allright.
And to my delight, I discovered that the beautiful girl who has mostly a minor background role with little dialogue ...
is none other than Vanity!
(Come on down to her vampire boudoir: 'Flippin' Out' from her album "Wild Animal")
What We're Afraid Of: Nothing new or insightful here. Horny teens are punished, etc etc.
But it's also interesting just how this wave of slasher horror spoke to fears about being bullied, being outcasts, being at the bottom rung of the social hierarchy, or just at the receiving end of a cruel prank. The bullied/harassed rises up to take revenge, and whether there's an anti-bullying message or not, I think back then there weren't many ways to talk about it as a societal issue, except through horror. Perhaps we could consider Carrie as the "mother" of this horror trope, and subsequent films were its mutant spawn.
We also have a bit of gender and transgender issues to think about, but not from Terror Train. That will be its own dissertation next year. Except for the fact that the androgyny of the Final Girl seems to be a thing.
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Comments
Foxy girls! Interesting to see Jamie Lee Curtis in a Horror Flick.
Helluva a cast and Spottiswoode's first feature in the director's chair to boot! Got to be a good flick. R&R ;-)
Fine analysis: you
deftly expose the moral panic(s) in play when these films were made. I
saw Prince once, many years ago, in a club in Minneapolis. He was
accompanied by three distinctly vampish ladies.
r.
"America was the land of foxy girls, rock and roll and horror movies...." Amen!!!! :D
GREAT story about how
you first heard about this movie. Plus ... Vanity AND David
Copperfield. Together. In a movie ... I'm trying to process this.
That literally stopped me in my tracks for a few moments.
As for the "shallow flaw," don't apologize for what turns your crank. Do you think she's a nasty girl?
As for the "shallow flaw," don't apologize for what turns your crank. Do you think she's a nasty girl?
@VA, little did she know she would be the soundtrack of Monica Lewinsky's life with the song "Pretty Mess" .... ;)
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