Tuesday, October 01, 2013

Happy Hog Night

Terror Train (1980)
directed by Roger Spotiswoode
rating: 2 out of 5 cravats
on DVD from Carnegie Library

In spite of its satisfying unspoken social critique (handsome rich guys are creeps), Terror Train is a mess. I don't remember Murder on the Orient Express (I remember that it was boring), but I assume that the conductor could apply the brakes if he wanted to. Trains are good locations for murder--compartmentalized private spaces filled with strangers--and a killer can conveniently hop off at any time, hundreds of miles from the city where he bought a ticket. If one were "simple, silent, and quick" enough, it would be easy.

But wholesale slaughter at the hands of a costumed maniac? Ben Johnson runs the locomotive that pulls this senior year booze cruise through the gathering darkness and even discovers the body of a dead teenager, but he doesn't stop the party because he doesn't want to scare the other kids. And of course there's no radio on his "little old excursion train"--he's talking about day sailing, not sharking for a living!

Someone wants revenge for a nasty fraternity prank that put him in a mental hospital, and the sitting ducks oblige and oblige again. We're primed to root against the bros for their "boys will boys" belligerence, but Jamie Lee Curtis, the ostensible heroine, still dates one of them. She isn't always comfortable with his behavior (Mandy Pepperidge without the pep) but he does charter trains for keggers. What's a girl to do? Side with the poor guy who overreacted to a mean-spirited joke?

David Copperfield was engaged to Claudia Schiffer at a time in my life when I thought Claudia Schiffer was the most beautiful woman in the world. Copperfield was in his late thirties in 1993 but still looked like an over-groomed high school senior. I attribute their depressing relationship at least in part to my eventual pivot from daydreams about German supermodels to daydreams about French actresses. Godard might be a nut, but better Vivre sa vie than tricking your true love at cards! The most financially successful magician in history is by far the strangest traveler on board Terror Train, and you can thank that weirdo for this blog.

Happy October!