Terror Train

Now, I am not familiar with the 1980s horror movie "Terror Train" from director Roger Spottiswoode, so just how much of a copy and paste job director Philippe Gagnon did of the original I have no idea. In fact, I didn't even know about the 1980s movie prior to stumbling upon this 2022 movie and finding out that it was a remake of an older movie.

Writers Ian Carpenter and Aaron Martin put together an adequate storyline and plot here. But of course, I am not familiar with the 1980s movie, so I don't know how different or alike the two movies are. So I cannot compare this remake to the original. And with that being said, then I will say that I enjoyed this 2022 movie for what it was. Sure, it wasn't a groundbreaking horror movie, but it provided me with adequate entertainment.

The cast ensemble in "Terror Train" was good, and I was pleasantly surprised to see Tim Rozon on the cast list, and he was quite good in the movie. Just a shame that he wasn't given more screen time.

For a horror movie, then director Philippe Gagnon didn't exactly break any formulas or go up and beyond what you would expect from a movie such as "Terror Train". But it made for an adequately entertaining enough movie, and that was good enough for me.

My rating of "Terror Train" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Makes the same mistake so many reimaginings do. It follows the source material too faithfully and in doing so, fails to differentiate itself in any meaningful way. The character names, the storyline, and even some of the costumes are carried over from the previous incarnation. It's fun to see nods to the original in a remake but they tend to work better when peppered in, rather than constant and impossible not to notice. The problems with this reboot extend beyond the filmmakers' desire to retread familiar ground. The characters are also uninspired and there isn't really a standout player to inspire audience investment. This version of Alana (played this time by Robyn Alomar) is kind of spineless. She comes across as a very kind and considerate person but she spends so much of her time doubting herself and apologizing that it's hard to warm to her. She's likable enough on a human level but she doesn't have enough backbone to effectively function as a protagonist. If she doesn't have faith in herself, what reason does the audience have to get behind her?

Terror Train is a serviceable remake of the original 1980 slasher. It pretty much follows the original beat for beat with a slight sting in the end.

Like the 1980 version, the movie is full of red herrings and only 5 or 6 people really matter despite being on a crowded party train. Robyn Alomar does well in the lead role and makes for a decent final girl.

I was expecting to hate Terror Train but i found it surprisingly less annoying than i thought i would. There are some bad cringe moments but it manages to keep it to a minimum. It was nice to see some of the costumes from the original make an appearance here as well.

Like i said, serviceable.

The original is a pretty standard slasher beyond its gimmick and predictable villain. I always thought the magic thing was weird. At least they got David Copperfield.

This is one is basically the same. The first 90% is one for one. The only difference is the final twist which you can figure out because they stole it from another classic slasher movie.

They just added the most blatant, cheap modernizations possible: a more diverse cast, social media, selfies, dropping trendy terms like "polyamorous", "snowflake", "canceled" etc...

The "Boy Who Cried Wolf" thing doesn't work after the 5th time.

This remake pretty awful, but I have to give credit to the producers recapturing at least most of the original's eerie atmosphere, the dark night on a train scenario. Also, the clown definitely beats the Groucho costume, and the Lizard was an upgrade too. The killer is more intimidating because of these changes, and that rocks. That being said, everything else ought to be thrown into the garbage disposal. The usual overdone political correction and the bad acting add up to a snooze-fest, not unusual in remakes, especially STS (Straight-To-Streaming) remakes. The original is no masterpiece, but it definitely holds your interest on a cold winter night due to the interesting characters involved, such as the weird magician. I got the impression these actors had to hold back from laughing at the cheesy scripts they were given, understandably. It amounts to nothing more than a joke, after all. So, I recommend exiting this flick after you've had a good look at the cool costumes and then switching to something better on TUBI.