Trailer
Plot summary
At a fraternity party, Alana is pushed into playing a prank on Kenny Hampson, an awkward pledge. She lures him into a dark bedroom, where a body taken from the medical school lies in wait. Kenny is admitted to a psychiatric hospital. Three years on, the students behind the trick, Doc, Mitchy, Mo, Ed and Jackson among them, mark the end of their college years with a party aboard a vintage train as the new year arrives. A magician and his assistant are hired to entertain the group. Conductor Carne settles his passengers on board and the train sets off through wooded country. Hidden behind a costume, a killer moves through the cars.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Terror Train (1980)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
On the final day of shooting, a small crew filmed Kenny's body falling from the train into a frozen river in New Hampshire, but the stunt man could not withstand the freezing water, so art director Guy Comtois played the dead killer instead.- Because the train car was stationary, a crew was appointed to push on each side of it so the interior sequences would appear to take place on a moving train.
- Cinematographer John Alcott lit the cramped train interiors by rewiring the entire train and mounting individual dimmers on the outsides of the cars, using bulbs of different wattages, and sometimes pen torches and Christmas lights on the actors' faces.
SPOILER
Director Roger Spottiswoode called cross-dressing performer Derek MacKinnon "a sissy" and "a fag" during his audition for killer Kenny to anger him; Spottiswoode was pleased, feeling MacKinnon's anger displayed what was necessary for the role of Kenny.- After Friday the 13th grossed $39.7 million, 20th Century Fox executives expected Terror Train to gross between $40 million and $50 million, but it took about $8 million on a $3.5 million budget and the studio considered it a huge failure.
- Veteran actor Ben Johnson took the role of train conductor Carne out of fondness for director Roger Spottiswoode, whom he had worked with on The Getaway (1972), on the condition that some vulgar words be removed from the script.
- There was no stage show magician in the original script, but one was written in because producer Sandy Howard was a fan of magic tricks and illusions.
- Terror Train became a cult classic, inspiring a 2022 remake that was followed by a sequel the same year.
