TERROR TRAIN (1979) Blu-ray
Director: Roger Spottiswoode
Scorpion Releasing/Ronin Flix

"Don't waste money on a return fare. You won't be coming back!" when you board the TERROR TRAIN with Scorpion Releasing's limited edition Blu-ray.

"The boys and girls of Sigma Phi" are celebrating their undergraduate graduation by boarding an excursion train for a costume party on a snowy winter's night. Things are tense between ringleader Doc (Hart Bochner, APARTMENT ZERO) and sorority sister Alana (Jamie Lee Curtis, HALLOWEEN) due to how his roving eye leads to his repeated betrayal of her best friend Mitchy (Sandee Currie, CURTAINS) and the unhealthy influence Doc has over her boyfriend Mo (Timothy Webber, THE HOTEL NEW HAMPSHIRE) as well as a hazing incident three years previous in which she was tricked into luring nerdy Kenny (Derek McKinnon) into a bed with a real corpse leading to the pledge's institutionalization. Conductor Carne (Ben Johnson, BREAKHEART PASS) is concerned that one of the drunk revelers might fall out of the train, but even before boarding someone has murdered practical joker Ed (Howard Busgang, KILLER PARTY) and donned his Groucho Marx costume and boarded the train. No one knows who hired the magician (David Copperfield) and the first dead body Carne discovers appears to be a sick prank, but what about the second?

Essentially, "HALLOWEEN on a train" as the film was pitched, the Canadian/American co-production TERROR TRAIN came quick after HALLOWEEN, THE FOG, and PROM NIGHT, and helped establish the genre conceit of a past prank gone bad and retribution set during a subsequent event; here Kenny like so many slasher nerds contemptuously expelled from the popular clique via a fraternity initiation at the cost of his sanity and someone seeking revenge during another rite of passage. While not original, it is a reasonably well-executed suspenser with good performances from Johnson, Curtis, and Bochner, some striking low-light photography from the great John Alcott (BARRY LYNDON, THE SHINING) – who also lensed VICE SQUAD for co-producer Sandy Howard – and scoring from John Mills-Cockell who provided a somewhat different accompaniment for this and HUMONGOUS than fellow Canadian genre regular Paul Zaza (GHOSTKEEPER). The twists are suitably diverting, as is the final reveal, while the climactic moment involving the reliving of the original event is more resonant than some of the conventional slasher resolutions. Sam Peckinpah editor-turned-director Roger Spottiswoode (STRAW DOGS) would follow up TERROR TRAIN was supposed to direct 48 HRS. for which he wrote the screenplay, instead directing UNDER FIRE, TURNER & HOOCH, and AIR AMERICA among other Hollywood action films.

Heavily promoted upon release by Twentieth Century Fox, TERROR TRAIN was not a box office hit but performed respectably and was released to VHS in a dark transfer by Fox sublabel Key Video in the early eighties followed by a CBS/Fox fullscreen laserdisc in the late eighties. Fox's 2004 DVD featured both anamorphic widescreen and fullscreen transfers as well as mono and stereo remixes but was otherwise barebones. Scream Factory followed up with a special edition Blu-ray in 2012 that improved on the image to the extent that the dark photography allowed. When Fox's rights to the film finally expired a couple years ago, Scorpion announced a Blu-ray release of their own in a deal with Canadian TVA Films from which they also got the Sandy Howard/Harold Greenberg production DEATH SHIP. Mastered from a 2K scan of the original interpositive which begins with a United Artists/TransAmerica logo rather than a Fox one, Scorpion's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen looks slightly softer and darker than the Scream transfer but is an improvement. With such a low-lit film, the boosting of colors and brightness on the Scream transfer led to blown-out highlights in the practical lights and some reflections in metal and wood surfaces which are kept under control here while the sharpness in the Scream seems more like sharpening. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track is without issues, conveying Curtis' screams, dialogue, and the scoring effectively while the 5.1 remix seems to keep the dialogue in the center channel while dropping the music and effects in the middle of the surround field with what only occasionally seem like directional effects. The optional English SDH subtitle, however, are out of sync with the image and best left off.

Spottiswoode was supposed to record a commentary track for the Scorpion release but include appears in an interview (16:46) who regarded the original screenplay by T.Y. Drake (writer/director of the troubled Canadian genre film THE KEEPER) as "serviceable" and brought friend Judith Rascoe (LIFESPAN) on to polish it since her boyfriend was a magician and the magic act had been added at the behest of producer Howard. Besides getting the old steam engine from Connecticut to Montreal, he regarded shooting the magic scenes as one of the film's difficulties since audiences expect screen trickery in the movies. Rascoe also appears in a new interview (5:35) in which she recalls getting the chance to visit the train set and come up with scares and other business to take advantage of the location.

Ported over from the Scream disc is "Riding the Rails" (13:26), an interview with producer Don Carmody, who recalls that the French film industry in Montreal traded in erotica and got around censorship issues as Quebecois productions while the English-speaking part of the industry was not so lucky and instead traded in horror, with his first credits including David Cronenberg's SHIVERS and RABID. He tried his luck in Los Angeles before being called back by Harold Greenberg (THE LITTLE GIRL WHO LIVES DOWN THE LANE) to work on his deal with American Howard, getting Copperfield for the film, and he considering TERROR TRAIN to be the best of the Howard co-productions. In "Destination Death" (12:08), executive producer Daniel Grodnik (WITHOUT WARNING) recalls Howard buying the film based on his "HALLOWEEN on a train" pitch and getting Curtis through his friendship with John Carpenter and Debra Hill (ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK), and feeling that Fox's heavy promotion of the film to the youth market could never have competed with the likes of STAR WARS and other big budget Hollywood fare of the film.

"All Aboard!" (11:00) is an interview with production designer Glenn Bydwell (JOURNEY) who recalls dressing sets and working in concert with cinematographer Alcott to outfit the train with practical lighting solutions to illuminate, color, and cast shadows despite restrictions on what they could do with the train. In "Murder Music" (8:10), composer Mills-Cockell recalls the challenge of scoring a horror film, scheduling separate recording sessions for the film's rock music and the orchestral score (the former recorded in Canada and the latter in England), and Fox music supervisor Lionel Newman's suggestions upon hearing the first mix on how to enhance the scares. The disc also includes a still gallery (4:50), the film's theatrical trailer (2:28), and a TV Spot (0:30). The disc comes with reversible sleeve with new and original poster artwork, a slipcover with the new artwork, and a 9x11 inch mini poster of new artwork. (Eric Cotenas)

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