Terror Train

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Terror Train

R,

1980,

1h 37m,

Holiday/

Horror

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Watchlist

Watchlist

44%

18 Reviews

Tomatometer

37%

5,000+ Ratings

Popcornmeter

44%

Tomatometer

18 Reviews

37%

Popcornmeter

5,000+ Ratings

During a hazing, a fraternity of pre-med students has a particularly sinister prank in store for one their more timid pledges (Derek MacKinnon). With the help of a coed, Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis), they pull off the prank so well that the pledge needs to be institutionalized as a result. After several years pass and people forget the incident, those involved with the prank are ready to celebrate their graduation by having a costume party on a train, but they haven't escaped their past yet.

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Nick Schager

Lessons of Darkness

Apr 14, 2011

C

A run-of-the-mill slasher film whose central gimmick is setting its action on a train.

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Time Out

Jun 24, 2006

Better than most of its kind.

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Roger Ebert

Chicago Sun-Times

Oct 23, 2004

1/4

The classic horror films of the 1930s appealed to the intelligence of its audiences, to their sense of humor and irony. Movies like Terror Train... just don't care. They're a series of sensations, strung together on a plot.

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Bryce Hanson

Horror Movie Talk

Sep 18, 2025

2/10

I picked Terror Train because I was trying to find a horror movie set during New Year’s, and apparently the picking is very slim, because this is considered “the good one”. It isn’t.

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Eddie Harrison

film-authority.com

Oct 4, 2024

3/5

…back in 1981, it must have seemed like the slasher movie fad would never end, but Terror Train now appears to be one of the best of a rather tatty bunch. Cast, technical aspects and conception are all first rate…

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Mark H. Harris

Black Horror Movies

Nov 18, 2022

3/5

While Terror Train has a good reputation among horror fans, until the hectic climactic battle between “final girl” and killer, it’s mostly run-of-the-mill slasher fare that distinguishes itself by... having Jamie Lee Curtis as the final girl.

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Finn S

Feb 2, 2019

3/5. An average sequel that benefits from a solid setting and some interesting themes.

Sep 26, 2018

This film was released in 1980 at a time when Jamie Lee Curtis was known as the seminal scream queen. After Halloween, around the same year as The Fog and Prom Night was released but just before Trading Places where Curtis turned her sites to comedy. Terror Train deserves a better rating than 38%, it is an influential film classic, despite appearing superficially like just another slasher flick this film is set apart from the rest because it is stylised and noirish. But perhaps most of all Curtis, like her mum, Janet Lee, can act.

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Draco R

Aug 2, 2018

Terror Train is a little boring and predictable, and even if the Jamie Lee Curtis helps to keep the thrills, the rest of the cast doesn't do too much.

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Anakin M

Feb 18, 2018

Skip This Movie It Is Awful!

George S

Apr 27, 2017

Stupid Stupid Stupid!

George W

Feb 16, 2017

Enters so-bad-it's-good territory.

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Roger Spottiswoode

Director

Ben Johnson

Carne

Jamie Lee Curtis

Alana Maxwell

Hart Bochner

Doc Manley

David Copperfield

Ken the Magician

Derek MacKinnon

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Synopsis

During a hazing, a fraternity of pre-med students has a particularly sinister prank in store for one their more timid pledges (Derek MacKinnon). With the help of a coed, Alana Maxwell (Jamie Lee Curtis), they pull off the prank so well that the pledge needs to be institutionalized as a result. After several years pass and people forget the incident, those involved with the prank are ready to celebrate their graduation by having a costume party on a train, but they haven't escaped their past yet.

Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Producer: Harold Greenberg
Screenwriter: T.Y. Drake
Distributor: 20th Century Fox
Production Co: Astral Bellevue Pathé
Rating: R
Genre: Holiday, Horror
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Oct 3, 1980, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Nov 17, 2016
Runtime: 1h 37m
Aspect Ratio: Flat (1.85:1)

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