Terror Train
Terror Train is a 1980 slasher film directed by Roger Spottiswoode in his directorial debut and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, and Hart Bochner. Set aboard a moving train on New Year's Eve, the film follows a group of pre-medical school students holding a costume party who are targeted by a killer who steals their costumes after murdering some students to avoid being caught. It features supporting performances from Sandee Currie, Anthony Sherwood, and David Copperfield. The concept for the film was based on an idea by executive producer Daniel Grodnik, who sought to "make Halloween on a train". A full-length script for the film was composed by T. Y. Drake, and production was initiated within four months. The film was shot in Montreal between late November and late December 1979, shortly after Curtis had completed filming for Prom Night (1980). An independently produced film, Terror Train was purchased for distribution by the major studio 20th Century Fox, who had yet to release a slasher film; the studio was able to supply an expansive marketing campaign for the film that cost an estimated $5 million. It was released theatrically in the United States on October 3, 1980, grossing $8 million during its theatrical run. Plot At a Northern Illinois University fraternity's New Year's Eve party, a reluctant Alana Maxwell is coerced into participating in a prank: she lures the shy and awkward pledge Kenny Hampson into a room on the promise of a sexual liaison, where the medical students have placed a woman's corpse (stolen from the medical school) in bed. Kenny is traumatized by the prank and sent to a psychiatric hospital. Three years later, the members of the same fraternities and sororities hold a New Year's Eve costume party aboard a train. They include class clown Ed, prank ringleader Doc; Jackson; Mitchy, Alana's best friend; and Alana's boyfriend Mo. Also aboard is a magician and his female assistant, hired to entertain the students. Ed is murdered prior to boarding and the killer dons Ed's Groucho Marx mask, allowing him to board unnoticed. As the train journeys into the wilderness, the killer wanders amongst the students, who believe him to be Ed. In the sleeper bathroom, he murders Jackson. Train conductor Carne finds Jackson's body, still wearing his lizard costume. When Carne returns to the scene with brakeman Charlie, the killer has hidden Jackson's body and is now posing in the lizard costume; Charlie and Carne believe him to simply be drunk. The killer kills Mitchy in the compartment; Carne finds her corpse. During a magic show, Doc finds Mo dead. Carne and Charlie discover two of the crew members dead. They sequester the students into one car while the pullman porters find the corpse of another student. Suspecting Kenny, Alana recounts to Doc her attempt to visit Kenny at the hospital, where she learned that he is disturbed and may have been involved in a murder. Doc seals himself in the sleeper car but is decapitated. Alana