Critic Reviews

The bloodshed is somewhat less gory than in many slasher films -- with stress on the "somewhat." [26 Sep 2004]

Terror Train doesn't really hold up, but it does offer a fun dose of low-brow slasher mayhem.

Still, better than most of its kind.

Roger Spottiswoode, vet editor who co-authored a respected book on the subject with Karel Reisz, makes a competent directing debut here.

Better than most in the slice-and-dice genre, Terror Train has a couple of decent performances from Ben Johnson and Jamie Lee Curtis, great photography from John Alcott (Barry Lyndon; The Shining), and some atmospheric direction from Roger Spottiswoode (Under Fire).

The intention here was to make a thriller, a suspense movie about some people trapped on a train, waiting for an unknown killer to strike. The problem is that they don't do very much else except wait.

This 1979 teenage horror film has no redeeming style: it's a straight, pedestrian cop of Halloween, from the opening shock to the climactic battle against the psycho.

The premise - a crazed killer abused years before returns to wreak vengeance on the young - is so familiar that the audience can predict (and does: loudly) every "shock." [15 Oct 1980]

Terror Train is a curious hybrid that doesn't seem to know just what it wants to be. It has, I guess, few artistic pretensions, and yet it's not a rock-bottom-budget, schlock exploitation film.