Terror Train
1980 Dir. Roger Spottiswoode A group of college kids responsible for a prank gone wrong several years prior, are menaced by a masked killer as they throw a New Year’s Eve costume party on-board a train. The early Eighties is now regarded as the Golden Age of the slasher film. From 1978 to about 1985, cinemas were saturated with gory flicks featuring masked psychos stalking teenagers in lonely locations, gruesomely killing them off one by one. The popularity of these movies was ignited by John Carpenter’s Halloween , and their rigid template was confirmed by Friday the 13th . Each successive title layered on the violence, gore and nudity, neglecting to realise that what made Carpenter’s film so effective was its use of suspense, mood, and the anticipation of violence. Terror Train was one of the first (and in my humble opinion, best) slashers to be produced in the wake of Halloween’s success. It epitomises the sub-genre, sticking to its conventions as tightly as Jam...