Well, after last week's clunker, I'm hoping that Terror Train is a more professional effort. It's kind of a clever concept: a killer is on board a train with a group of partying college graduates, and everyone's in costume. As the killer walks among them, he kills a victim, then dons their costume as a sort of camouflage. Let's hope that the movie is as interesting as the premise makes it sound. SPOILERS apply, as always...
Our story begins at a bonfire. It's an outdoor kegger being held by a fraternity, or every guy there just decided to wear the same beanie cap. Oh, and it's New Year's Eve. Geez, how many reasons do they need for an excuse to start the film at a party? Is it someone's birthday too?
Anyway, the guys are pledging a fraternity called Sigma Phi Omega. A scrawny guy in glasses named Kenny is being pushed by his frat brothers to see if a cute sorority girl named Alana(played by a young, incredibly cute Jamie Lee Curtis) will have sex with him. Of course it's the set-up for a prank, and one of the planners of said prank is Mitchy, Alana's close friend(also female, despite the name).
Alana is shown into the bedroom where the prank will take place, just as Kenny ascends the stairs. There's something in the bed already, but the audience doesn't know yet what it might be. Mitchy waits outside the bedroom door, and shows Kenny in, where Alana is hiding behind a curtain. Kenny undresses while Alana tries not to laugh, and she whispers to him that she wants him to approach the bed and kiss "her".
Kenny does as he's told, and the dummy in the bed turns out to be a corpse stolen from the anatomy department. Kenny freaks out in the most melodramatic way possible, by standing on the bed and getting tangled up in the curtains around it. As the jerkoffs from the frat enter the room to enjoy Kenny's misery, Alana sees that the thing in the bed was a corpse and looks horrified for Kenny. Oh, and Kenny looks like a drag queen in this sequence. Yeesh.
And that's all pre-credits!!
The movie then picks up the story 4 years later. The members of the fraternity, as well as their girlfriends and closest friends, are celebrating their graduation from college by throwing a huge shindig on a train. Besides Jamie Lee, probably the biggest celebrity in the film is illusionist David Copperfield, who plays "The Magician". Boy, he's really stretching his acting muscles! Anyone want to bet that the guy with no actual name is the killer? The movie also has Hart Bochner, who was in the first sequel to Urban Legend; Sandee Currie, who was in the underrated slasher film Curtains; and Vanity, a singer-actress probably best known as the love interest in a 1980's action film, The Last Dragon.
Anyway, the train passes by under the credits, which nearly get swallowed up by all of the smoke coming from the train itself. Man, this looks like a sequel to The Fog! The movie helpfully tells us that it's 3 years later, then we see a busload of grads getting off of the bus to get on the train. Hey, why not just party on the bus, then go to Florida, dumbasses?
As I mentioned in the first paragraph, this is a combination graduation/costume party, but the majority of the "costumes" are pretty damn sad. You can more or less pick out who's going to be killed by the very fact that they have an elaborate costume or a mask big enough to cover their entire face. Everyone else is wearing simple "Lone Ranger"-style half-masks, with a few token feather boas or glittery clothes. Lame.
The one black guy in the film, Jackson, is the last to leave the bus. Their are so many offensive things in that last sentence, I'm not even sure where to start. Please tell me they didn't make him ride in the back. He opens a beer and proposes a toast to his classmates, and the crowd laughs and cheers when someone yanks a lizard mask over his head. Well, I guess he'll die too. Real creative, guys. Let me guess, did someone bring a cat along for the ride, just so it could leap out of a dark room at some point, or did the writers miss a few slasher film cliches?
The bus driver, or maybe he's a guy working as a train porter, helps the students to load their baggage onto the train, and falls for a few dumb pranks. A character named Ed (the class clown of the group) is dressed up as Groucho Marx, and cracks several jokes older than the Marx Brothers themselves(the only one I found moderately funny so far was made after he stepped off the bus and saw the train: "Has anyone seen my girlfriend? She's the one with the big caboose!" Since all of the promotional stuff for Terror Train shows the killer in Ed's costume, I think it's safe to say that we won't have to put up with his jokes for very long.)
Doc, dressed as a monk, starts throwing confetti and party favors around, while Ed keeps making asinine quips for anyone who'll listen. Then we get introduced to...The Magician! Ed tries to make a wisecrack at his expense, and The Magician just goes back to lugging his trunk of props onto the train.
The conductor, nicknamed "Winnebago", gets a weather report from an elderly woman named Maggie. They seem to be old flames, but she has a face like a foot and he looks like he might have graduated from high school with Moses and Noah. I hope they don't kiss...I had a big meal earlier.
The graduates finally start to board the train, with Ed staggering behind them. He's clutching a sword that seems to be stuck in his gut, and everyone assumes that he's just being goofy. Uh, how about saying, "Hey, the killer stabbed me! I need a doctor!" Ed? But no, he just staggers around with a sword sticking out of him, and then dies as the last few students climb aboard the train. The killer strips his costume off of poor Ed, quickly puts it on, then gets on the train as we see Ed's corpse roll directly in the path of one of the train's wheels. Man, if Ed were still alive, he'd be in a world of pain. We get to see and hear one of his arms get crushed by the train, and then I guess no one at the station notices his bloody corpse just sitting there on the tracks. Nice.
Alana and Mitchy are across the hall from each other, and a drunk girl in a bunny costume begs Mitchy to be her roommate at school before staggering away. So wait...this is a graduation trip/costume party...but only for some of the students? Then why the heck are the others going? The killer observes from a hiding place, while Mitchy and Alana get all weepy about going their seperate ways. Mitchy decides to find a bathroom so she can adjust her tear-stained makeup, and the killer decides to hide once more.
In the dining car, a girl named "Pet" asks a guy named "Prez"(who is dressed like Uncle Sam, just to be even more confusing) if he has seen Ed. He tells her to check the next car down, and off she goes. Then there's a short scene where the engineer, "Shovels", and Winnebago engage in a debate over whether or not trains are obsolete. *yawn*
As the students/graduates/whatevers dance to some cheesy disco music, The Magician watches them. He tells his female assistant how much he resents them, and she tries to lighten the mood. When she encourages him to mingle and show them some sleight-of-hand tricks, he just says ominously, "I'm not ready."
Okay, I finally have this whole party thing figured out. It's specific to members of Sigma Phi Omega and whatever sorority they're affiliated with, so that's why it's not just seniors in attendance. Doc and the other seniors have a private train car set up to party in, and one guy asks about the "legend" of the prank from 3 years earlier. Doc tells the story, and Alana interrupts by revealing that Kenny was hospitalized after the "prank" went wrong.
Doc asks the younger frat guys to leave, and gives them a few bottles of alcohol as compensation. When he, Alana and the remaining frat boys reveal that they have champagne to drink, Kenny stands outside the closed door in the Groucho disguise and gets himself into a nice, simmering rage.
As Shovels and Winnebago continue their debate about the decline of train travel, Kenny prepares to take his next victim. I think it's Mitchy, she's wearing a dress that looks like it might be the witch outfit. Anyway, Kenny shows her Ed's severed finger in a box, and she laughs, assuming it's just a gag like Ed pulled earlier. Kenny follows her as she walks down the narrow corridor, but Jackson interrupts the murder plan. Kenny gets annoyed by Jackson, so he decides to kill him instead.
Jackson offers Kenny a drink, so they sneak into the restroom together. A bathroom??? Seriously??? Ummmm, okay...As Jackson pours 2 drinks, Kenny yanks him up by his mask, and lets him have a good, close look at his face. Jackson panics when he realizes that "Ed" is really Kenny, then Kenny smashes the bathroom mirror to pieces with Jackson's face.
Alana, Doc, Mitchy and Doc's buddy Moe(who looks like Bill Maher....probably not, though, since I didn't see his name in the credits), in a parrot costume, are all smoking and drinking in the senior car. Doc pisses off Alana when he reveals that he lied about how the party was paid for. As if that's not bad enough, he also tells his friends that he spiked the alcohol that he gave to the younger frat boys. Doc just gets her madder when he says(in the most menacing way possible) that this is one party that she can't walk out on. Doc's a bit of a psycho himself, hmmm? Moe follows Alana, but first threatens Doc with revenge for being such a dick. Boy, wouldn't it be funny if one of these guys was the killer, instead of Kenny?
Alana and Moe hug and make up, then Alana sees something wrong outside the bathroom where Jackson was just killed, and assumes that a wine bottle was broken. After she and Moe leave, Kenny emerges from the cramped toilet and locks it from the outside with a key. Wait, where did he get a key for the train?
Winnebago's co-worker asks him if they should patrol a bit to check on the party, but Winnebago doesn't want to intrude on their celebration. That goes nowhere, so we switch back to the dining car, where the party is still going. They talk to a few of the guests, then decide to watch The Magician...
The Magician asks for a coin from Alana, and makes a cigarette stick to it. Then he twistsd the cigarette, and makes it pass through the quarter. Alana lights the cigarette, and The Magician smokles it for a second to show that it's still intact. He feeds the cigarette back through the quarter, shows that both are completely intact, then makes the quarter vanish.
The magic continues at the snack bar, where The Magician waves his hand over a coin-operated vending machine, and a handful of peanuts fall into Alana's open palm. He grins at the crowd, then walks away. I bet he kept the quarter, too. Winnebago tries to show the other conductor a card trick of his own, but the other man refuses to take part, saying that playing cards are sinful.
Pet complains about Ed disappearing. Then a girl named Merry(the one played by Vanity) adds that Jackson has also abandoned her. After they leave, Alana and Moe continue their earlier squabble. Alana tells him that he should stay far away from Doc, and that she still resents Doc for the prank that was played on Kenny 3 years ago.
Speaking of Doc, Winnebago meets him and his girlfriend outside of their berth, and shows them a card trick. He tells Doc to think of a card and concentrate on the deck. After counting down from 5, Winnebago asks them what card they thought of. The female says that she was thinking of the jack of clubs. Winnebago tells them that not only has it risen to the top of the deck, but that it became a jack of spades. Ha ha. They all notice the locked bathroom, but no one does anything about it.
The Magician is finally ready to put on his stage act. He does some playing card illusions, then brings out his assistant. They do a little dance number, then he levitates her. Doc finds Moe sitting in a room by himself, and when Moe says that everyone else is watching the magic show, Doc reveals that they never hired a magician. Oops. Did we just reveal the murderer? Doc finds out that Moe and Alana are still fighting, and Doc tells his friend that if he loses Alana, he could always fall back on Doc. Wait, what? So Doc is gay, and has a thing for Moe now?
The Magician is still levitating his assistant, and passes a hoop around her body to prove that there are no wires. He covers her in a red sheet, then pulls it away, and she's now gone. As the magic show ends, Alana asks Winnebago about Ed's disappearance, and he plants the idea in her head about the costume switching.
Pet and Merry tell Doc and Moe about the magic act, but Doc could care less. Moe tries to argue that Doc loves tricks, but his counter-argument is that he loves jokes, not tricks. Then he and Moe get the girls to go somewhere private with them. Mitchy sees them, and looks pretty upset. She doesn't tell Alana, but instead distracts her to keep her from finding the deceitful boyfriends.
As Kenny skulks around watching everyone, the movie catches up with Doc, Moe, Pet and Merry. Winnebago shows up just as one of the girls nearly pukes, so the foursome quickly beat a hasty retreat. Seeing that the bathroom is still locked, the conductor uses his passkey to investigate. He finds Jackson's corpse, checks for a pulse, then wipes the blood from his hand.
Alana dances with Prez(the guy in the Uncle Sam outfit), and sees Mitchy leave. Prez offers Alana an ear if she wants to talk, but she declines. Then The Magician comes to the dance floor, and gives Alana a strange glance. Meanwhile, Winnebago tells the other conductor about the dead body. They both agree that the best course of action is to notify the station, and see if they can turn back...oh, and Winnebago tells the other conductor to keep the death hush-hush around the passengers. After a quick chat with the engineer, they decide to continue on their current journey, because it's slightly closer.
Winnebago takes a walk, and finds himself alone in one of the party compartments. He walks through decorations and trash to take a seat, and eyes another door with suspicion. He meets up with the other conductor at the door to the crime scene, but they find it cleaned up, and the killer is on the floor pretending to be Jackson. Then Mitchy shows up, assumes that the person under the mask is Jackson, and walks away with him.
Doc and Moe continue to ply their dates with booze, and they find a yearbook. As the foursome read through it, they find a photo of Kenny, and quickly change the subject. Doc takes off then with Merry, leaving Moe with a very drunk and oversexed Pet to contend with.
In one of the berths, Mitchy flirts with the person she still assumes to be Jackson. They hear someone coming, so Mitchy and Kenny climb into an upper berth to hide behind the curtain. They hear Merry and Doc pass by, then Mitchy sets about trying to seduce "Jackson". Kenny removes one of his green gloves to fondle her, and reveals that it contained Jackson's severed hand. When Mitchy starts to scream, Kenny suffocates her.
Back in the still-crowded dining car, Alana has another encounter with The Magician. He gives her a rose by levitating it to her, then things get even weirder. He knows who she is. Before she can talk to him any further, he seems to vanish. Then Doc walks in. He apologizes to her, then asks if she has seen Mitchy. He also encourages Alana to find Moe, knowing that she'll walk in on him with Pet. This guy really is a dick.
In the very next scene Pet gets naked, even though Moe is trying to be faithful to his girlfriend. The conductors are alone, trying to figure out how the crime scene was cleaned up so fast. Good question. Better question: why did we leave Moe and Pet in the middle of a scene?
We jump right back to The Magician, who is performing yet another card trick for Doc, Prez, and a crowd of onlookers. His trick involves finding a specific card that Doc picked, even though the cards are all over the floor and covered by a sheet of paper. Doc calls it a trick for children, so The Magician pulls out a switchblade, and lets it land blade-down on the pile. The card that it stabbedby the knife is not only the correct card, but it also says "DOC" in bold letters. Everyone cheers and claps except Doc, who just sits there and looks pissed off.
Winnebago finds Mitchy's shoe, then her dead body. It's odd, because we saw her get strangled, yet there's a good amount of blood on her face. Winnebago closes and seals up the curtain again, then nearly has a heart attack when he runs into Alana. She identifies Mitchy's shoe, and after Winnebago checks the bathroom again for blood, he asks Alana to come with him.
Along the way, she stops to knock at Moe's door, but he's hiding with Pet. After Alana and the conductor move on, Moe leaves. Once they get to a deserted section of the train, Winnebago tells Alana that Mitchy is dead. She doesn't buy it, but she sees the corpse up close and breaks down in the conductor's arms.
Alas, there's another magic trick to watch. Wasn't this supposed to be a slasher flick? I mean, if they added Charo and Harvey Korman to this scene, it'd pass as a scene from "Love Boat". And where the Hell is the gore? Oops, I kinda forgot I was watching a magic trick! I better rewind a bit.
Okay, so The Magician gets covered in a cloth. Then he asks the girl covering him to hold up any number of fingers behind him, pull up the cloth, and supposedly he'll be holding the same amount. When she pulls off the cloth, the chair is empty, and The Magician is behind his audience, shouting out the correct number.
Alana and Winnebago try to reconstruct the events that ended with Mitchy's murder. That's when Winnebago realizes that the killer is switching costumes with his victims. Alas, we have to sit through more magic tricks. Boy, this movie has more filler than a guy named Filler McFillersteen. This trick also involves a sheet, as The Magician holds it over his head, then lowers it, only to reveal his assistant is now holding the curtain.
The conductor examines the bathroom thoroughly, finding a single towel with a bloody handprint on it. We zoom right back to the magic act's finale, where Doc discovers that Moe has died. He screams at the clapping audience for help, but everyone ignores him. He does what any intelligent med student would do...he drags Moe's corpse out of the room, screaming like a ninny as people laugh at him.
Doc encounters Alana and Winnebago, and together they work to get Moe lying down. They discover a bleeding chest wound, then a group of students ssee the body and get scared. Doc asks Alana where Mitchy is, and learns that she was also killed. That REALLY freaks him out, so he pulls the emergency brake, but nothing happens. That sends the conductor to see who might be operating the controls.
Turns out that no one is driving the train. Winnebago leaps into the driver's seat and slams on the brakes manually, sending every passenger careening off their feet. The other conductor stumbles in, and they work together to keep from derailing. When they come to a complete stop, Winnebago gives his co-worker a fire axe, and tells him to be wary. He finds a couple of porters and tells them to find weapons as well.
The 2 porters investigate the sleeping car, while the conductor evacuates the passengers, then tries to keep them calm as they stand around in the snow. One of the porters then finds another dead body. Alana and Doc find each other in the crowd, and Alana tells him that the killer is Kenny. Then we get some cool twists in the story.
It turns out that Alana tried to visit Kenny in the psych ward after the stunt that drove him batshit, but she wasn't allowed to see him. He went insane because the stunt with the corpse brought him flashbacks, from an incident in his teens that resulted in him killing someone ELSE. Doc grabs Alana's hand, and they take off running.
The conductor tells the frightened college kids that they all need to get back on the train, and that they will all be placed in a single passenger car, so as to discourage anyone from wandering off somewhere alone. Doc is already on the train again, and he has dragged Alana into an empty room with him. He even busted the lock, to ensure that the killer couldn't get in.
As Alana tries to reason with Doc, he shows her why he got so scared...a yearbook. To be specific, a page in the yearbook reveals that Kenny had a taste for...magic tricks. Doc smugly tells Alana thsat he plans to wait for Kenny to show up, then finish him off. I REALLY can't wait for Doc to die.
Alana forces her way out of the room, only to see Kenny marching toward her wearing a porter's outfit. As she starts to escape through a window, the person chasing her turns out to be an actual porter. Oops!! She asks him for help, and Doc relaxes when he overhears the conversation from the other side of the door. He sees another door that he forgot to check. It's a closet, and Doc gets scared when he stands in front of it.
He braces himself, then yanks the door open. It's an empty closet. He gets ready to open another door, and survives that one too. As Doc sits back down on the floor, he sees another potential hiding spot for the killer and gets up. That's when a hand under his seat darts out, grabbing his ankle. Doc shakes loose and pounds on the door, but a female-looking hand rests on his shoulder. When he assumes it to belong to Mitchy, Kenny takes the opportunity to yank his head backward and cut Doc's throat. Yay!
Alana finds Prez, and they go off to look for the conductor. Then we see The Magician running knives or swords through a box. He is disrupted by his assistant, who seems to have come out of the shower. She grabs a sword and playfully starts swinging it around, which seems to piss off The Magician.
While Prez and Alana look for Doc, they run into Winnebago, who happens to be on the phone. They telll him about their idea that The Magician is Kenny, and all 3 try to find him. Rut-roh, Raggy!! They get back to Doc's room to show Winnebago the yearbook page. Winnebago gets the door open, sees the blood and debris, and makes Prez and Alana wait outside with a porter while he searches the room for any signs of life.
He gets a faceful of corpse when he opens a closed berth, because Doc's body fall out. He comes face to face with Doc's severed head, then Alana bursts into the room and screams. But where did Kenny go, hmmmm?
With everyone back on the train, the journey resumes. The survivors all sit in the nightclub/lounge car, and Winnebago suggests that they all grab some food and coffee. The Magician's assistant comes out from behind the stage, and the conductor invites her to come with them. When she's right next to him, he asks her discreetly where The Magician is, and she tells him that The Magician(who finally has a name, Ken) is backstage. She calls out to Ken that she'll bring him a cup of coffee, but there's no response.
Between cars, Winnebago uses a chain to close up the lounge car. When the assistant asks for information, he only tells her that he's trying to keep her safe. Then a porter finds a deserted room for Alana to rest in. He supplies her with pillows and blankets, and promises to stand in the hallway to guard her. Once she's alone, Alana closes all of the shades on the windows, turns on all of the lights, opens the closets, and even checks out the ceiling. Satisfied that she is alone at last, Alana sits back down and clutches a pillow.
The other passengers form an angry mob, and a dumb jock demands to be let out, so that he can go after the killer by himself. Winnebago hands him an ax, then asks him to look at all of the dead bodies before he goes. They stare at each other, until the jock finally backs down. Winnebago makes it up to the kid by offering to go take a look himself.
Bad idea. The porter who was guarding Alana is now dead too. He has one of Ken's swords in his chest, and the killer reaches down next to the body to get the dead man's ax. Winnebago and a couple of porters re-enter the lounge, and ask Ken to step out and talk to them. When he still won't answer, Winnebago decides to look backstage for himself. He and the 2 porters find the dressing room deserted. Ken either jumped off the train, was killed, or is now somewhere else on the train. Yikes!
The killer is seen moving around the train, dragging the weapon at his side. Alana, still sleeping, has no idea that he's standing right outside the room she's in. He opens the door quietly, and this time he's wearing the "old" mask that Mitchy had earlier(I think...with so many costume changes, this one's tough to follow!), along with Doc's "monk" robe. He gets right next to the sleeping woman, then brings his ax down, and there's a squeak.
Ah, a decoy. As the killer keeps swinging, Alana bursts out of a closet behind him and stabs him in the back with a sword. Where the heck did Alana get her hands on one of the swords from the magic act??? Well, however she got her hands on the sword, she had it. As the killer tries to recover, Alana runs out of the room. As she breathlessly starts movind down the corridor, the killer blocks her from another door by thrusting his arm out in front of the frightened damsel. How the heck did he get ahead of her so damn fast?
Alana then runs into a small booth with a glass window and shuts it. The killer breaks the glass with his ax, and Alana runs through another door, into what looks like a maintenance compartment. The killer gets in too, and closes the door behind him as Alana struggles to open yet another door. He casually strolls toward her, grabs her head, then starts to strangle the poor girl. There's a brief struggle, until Alana manages to bite one of the killer's bloody hands.
He rips off her blouse, so Alana grabs a fire extinguisher off the floor and sprays his eyes with it. Then she runs again, back the way theyv came, and manages to jam it shut with what look like handcuffs. After the killer wastes some seconds hitting the mesh walls around Alana to scare her, he finds a sharp pole. Using the pole to smash the overhead light, the killer then shoves the pole through the wire at Alana, nearly impaling her with it.
As he destroys another light, Alana calls out his name. Kenny ignores her, so Alana looks around again for a weapon, and finds a large nail holding Post-It notes. She aims for Kenny's face, and the nail hits the skin underneath where the mask's ear is. Kenny clutches his face in agony, while Alana kicks the door open to escape.
Yet another chase sequence begins. I'm willing to bet that whoever invented Pac-Man was probably a big fan of slasher flicks, because that's what most of them are. You chase him, he chases you, blah blah blah. Anyway, Kenny catches up to Alana as she's trying to get a red gate opened, and she delivers several rough kicks to his midsection. He seemingly falls off of the train, then Winnebago and Prez find Alana and bring her back to the occupied sections of the train.
It's not quite over, though....a pair of bloody hands are clinging to the outside railing. The conductor checks on both Alana and Merry, but Alana is finally asleep again. After the conductor leaves, Merry also steps out to get some air. Behind Alana, outside a window, Kenny can be seen putting on his best Spider-Man imitation, and watching her from above the window. The killer creeps backward, and then we get a shot of an empty hallway.
The door opens, and Alana wakes up with a start, but it's only Merry again. She convinces Alana to go back with her into the lounge with all of the other survivors. As Alana gets out of bed, she hears a strange sound nearby. She moves quickly down some narrow, dark corridors and jumps when she sees a witch hat and broom. Then a figure moves out of the shadows and approaches her at a pretty good clip. AAAAAH!!! Oh, it's only Prez. He grabs her hand and they go to the lounge together.
The 2 conductors are driving the train, and they can see the lights of the station in the distance. Winnebago sends the other one back to tell everyone the good news, and he handles the controls by himself. At the same time, Alana is standing on an outer platform, freezing her butt off to watch scenery fly by. When she decides to head back inside, Alana starts looking through the luggage and props from The Magician's act. She finds a scrapbook, and starts flipping through it.
You'd think that this would be a scene where she starts reading scary newspaper clips about murders happening everywhere he performed, but you would be wrong. Instead, a box falls open, revealing the corpse of....The Magician! Dun Dun DUNNNNNNNNN!!! Yep, he was stabbed several times by his own swords. Ironic.
Alana screams her head off and starts running again. I'd love to watch a montage of her chase scenes done to the theme of "Benny Hill". So, where were we? Oh yeah. Alana. Running. Again. So, yeah, she runs out of the dressing room, she runs past concerned passengers, she runs out of the semi-crowded lounge. See Alana run. Run Alana, run.
She runs through a door with a big "N" on it(Nintendo? Nirvana? Ned Flanders?), and finds herself in a room belonging to someone named "Carne". Who the heck was Carne? Is she that chick who had the horrible talk show? Well, whoever she is(or was), Alana is in her room now. Alana leans wearily against a table and lowers her head, and a pair of hands hold hers. Uh oh...
It's the killer, dressed as a porter, in yet another mask. Kenny removes the mask to show her what we pretty knew already, then removes the porter hat, to reveal another surprise twist: Kenny was ALSO The Magician's assistant! Wow.
Alana tries to tell Kenny how sorry she is, but he doesn't buy it. He tells her that he was watching her flirt with The Magician, but she wants him to believe that she knew he was the better magician. Kenny forces Alana to kiss him, but then he recreates the night 3 years ago by freaking out in exactly the same way. What're the odds?
Kenny howls and twirls around the room, wrapping himself up in blankets and curtains and sheets, oh my. Winnebago then walks in with a shovel, which he uses to bash Kenny in the head with....yay, conductor! Winnebago hits him again, and Kenny goes flying out of the train, landing in a semi-frozen body of water many, many, many feet below. His body floats through the cold water, then disappears forever...or, until someone decides to remake this movie(and don't write to me about the recent movie Train...that started out as a Terror Train remake, yes, but then they changed it into an entirely different story.)or do a sequel.
The train keeps going, even though I should now be typing THE END...oops, no, that was it. THE END
Weird. And pretty abrupt. If any movie needed an extra surprise after or during the credits, it was Terror Train. I mean, the concept was a cool one, but there were more magic tricks than murders! Hell, they even botched the switching costumes idea, by giving only the main characters and victims full costumes. Geez, it was like Slasher Flicks For Dummies or something.
Still, there was some stuff to like here, too. I mean, there was a Young Jamie Lee Curtis. That was pretty sweet. The body was somewhat high, all things considered. And the concept of not knowing who was really who under the masks was also a good idea, at least in theory. Like I said earlier, this is one of the few times I'd LIKE too see a remake done. And the film did a good job of presenting a number of characters who could have been killers(Moe, Doc, The Magician, Alana herself)...the characters were pretty dark in this one!
Oh, and if you do a little looking on the internet, there's an interesting theory about this movie, that pretty much everything after the prank backfires is a dream that Alana has, because she feels remorse and guilt for being a part of Doc's scheme. The "clues" are in details like the way the bathroom and mirror were cleaned up after the conductor tried to show someone else the dead body; or the way that Kenny attacked Alana in one room, yet attacked her again by emerging from a door in front of her; or in the scene where Kenny appeared at Alana's window toward the end, but at an implausible position. Kind of far-fetched, but still fun to think about if you re-watch it.
Well, whatever the truth is, the film was better than most of the ones from the last decade or so, so I'm going to give it 3 and a half killer trees, out of 5 Oh, and what were this week's lessons learned from Terror Train?
-If you go to college, avoid fraternities and sororities like a plague, as well as guys named "Doc".
-Don't ever have sex with a magician's assistant...that ain't a wand in her pocket, but she IS happy to see you!
-Magic is fun...until you see 40 card tricks in a row.
No movie next week, and maybe not the week after either. I'm in the process of moving, and I'm not entirely sure how long packing, unpacking, and getting settled will take. I'm still watching at least 1 slasher a week though, so I'm watching Urban Legend next week, as well as Final Destination the following week, and maybe a few online. Next time we see each other, I'll be in my new apartment!
