We're excited for our new monthly
series to begin, but we're gonna miss Horror for the Holidays. With
that in mind, we thought we'd share with you our vote for January's
H4H would have been. There aren't many New Year's horror movies out
there, but one that Horror for the Holidays didn't get to was Terror
Train.
Jamie Lee Curtis stars in this low
budget slasher that was specifically written to ride the success of
John Carpenter's Halloween. (According to the filmmakers, the premise
came to them when they asked themselves what would happen if
Halloween took place on a train.) But for a rip-off movie, it
doesn't borrow too heavily and there are some seriously amazing
surprises like: a magic act by 24 year old David Copperfield, appearances from Hanz's future “white knight” and favorite B-movie Prince-protege Vanity, and John
Alcott on cinematography!
“John Alcott,” you ask? Not only did he win an Oscar for Best
Cinematography for Barry Lydon, he also shot most of Kubrick's iconic
work. He shot Terror Train and The Shining in the same year. (Drink
that in for a second. The man who shot one of the most atheistically
important movies of the 80s shot Terror Train the same year. This is
either a testament of how humble he was, or an incredible
illustration of how little the film industry values
cinematographers.) Make no mistake, his presence adds some
interesting visual elements to this fairly straight forward slasher.
