So what's with the CGI train? The movie already doesn't feel like it's really on a train and those shots aren't helping. I honestly thin using some miniatures would've resulted in a better looking train. With that out of the way, onto the story.
Nerdy frat pledge Kenny is promised a kiss from Alana, but what he gets instead is a kiss from a corpse. Now, that is all from the original, but here they actually explain the whole thing about the corpse before the prank even happens, which robs us of the reveal of it in the bed. While this is a change from the first story, it's not a very good one, but we're just getting started. Either way, others involved in this prank are Doc, Mo, and some others I don't remember nor care about.
Now it's three years later, and the friends are going to a graduation party on a train, this time being more around Halloween time instead of New Year's. Frankly, I'm fine with that change, it just gives more reason to make it a costume party. Someone kills a guy in a clown costume at the train station, stealing his costume so as to sneak aboard unnoticed. Now, many people have pointed out the similarity there, but I will begrudgingly defend the remake here. The original wasn't a clown costume, it was clearly Groucho Marx, while the remake opts for a regular scary clown.
On board the train (or maybe before they board, I don't care that much), we learn that the fraternity has a new president who's trying to clean it up a bit (and who apparently doesn't deserve a name - I vote we call him Columbo Jr for fun), upsetting Doc to no end. There's also an edgy magician who acts suspicious, a dude named Jackson in a lizard suit (like the original), a kindly train conductor named Carne, and her assistant Sadie. Killer clown tries and fails to stalk a few people, unable to get to tier 3 in time, and so settles for killing Jackson. Sadie later finds a dead Jackson sans lizard suit, so now we know that the killer has switched costumes. This was one of the big selling points of the original Terror Train, the costume switching meant you were never sure who the killer could be. Unfortunately, this is the only costume switch this time around, which makes me wonder why they brought it back at all.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, dumb, horny students get up to dumb, horny things. Sadie discovers body number one, but becomes convinced that it's just a prank. The lizard kills again, and this time his victim is a witch. We get more suspicious behavior from the magician, more dumb stuff from the students, and more of Sadie finding a body, this time with Alana accompanying her. Meanwhile, in the main party room, Mo has his throat slit while everyone is distracted by Red Herring's (sorry, the magician's) disappearing act. Alana and Sadie get back just in time to see Mo die, and I'm left wondering why I should care. I don't doubt that the actors are probably trying their best here (well, maybe they aren't, who knows), but the characters are just the worst mix of jerkish and bland that I couldn't really care less.
After Doc pulls the emergency brake, everyone finally realizes that this isn't another prank, and are finally a bit put off. At least, I think they are, most of them stand around chattering in a normal way in the immediate aftermath of this revelation, so maybe they're all fine with it. Carne says that the train will resume moving after they get a headcount on everyone present and conduct a search of the train, However, Doc doesn't want to hang around for the headcount, and he and Alana go to a VIP room to lock themselves in. After all, staying in a crowded room didn't help Mo, so how would that help them? Honestly, that's the most sensible thing I've heard all movie, and it actually started to sway me toward Doc's side here. Then I remembered that they were about to lock themselves in the VIP room, and anyone who's seen the original knows that's a sign that Doc is going to die now. Alana leaves to go searching for the magician, figuring he must be behind the killings, Sadie searches the train with an ax, and Doc gets tormented with videos of Kenny in the VIP room. Doc checks all of two places for the killer before giving up, while the lizard just walks up from out of frame, abandoning the cool mirror reveal from the first. Doc's throat gets slit in an uneventful way, and the lizard starts to saw off his head, but it cuts away before we get to see anything good.
Alana, Sadie, and Carne meet up in the party room, and go to the dressing room to check for the magician, who is predictably nowhere to be found. Carne breaks off from the others who make their back down the train, and find Doc's dead body. Unfortunately, we still don't get to see it. We see some legs poking out, a severed head falling out of a closet, and that's really it. Now, in the original the entire room was coated in blood, it was like wallpaper, with bits and pieces of Doc strewn about as decoration. Still, the killer might be back here somewhere, so best put Alana up in a nearby room while Sadie waits outside with an ax. What a great idea. Sadie hears something down the hall and goes to check it out, but it turns out the killer was actually on the other end of the hall, waiting for her to leave. Our killer, once again dressed as a clown, uses an identical ax to Sadie's (down to the little streaks on the blade) on the bed Alana's supposed to be in, but was tricked by the classic dummy routine.
Alana decks the killer and runs, starting a short chase that ends with Alana and the killer in a storage area in (I believe) the caboose. Alana locks herself in a little cage back there, and the killer grabs a long pole with a hook-like thing on the end to reach her with. He uses it to smash out the overhead lights before trying to skewer Alana through the bars of her pen. Now, this is all from the original film, but it doesn't quite work here. In the original he smashed out the lights to make the room darker, slowly getting closer to Alana with each light. Here, the room is much smaller than it was in the first, and even after the overhead lights are smashed there are still bright lights all around that the killer doesn't smash, making his earlier actions pointless. Why smash the overheads if you're not going to smash the others? Also, why smash them at all? She's not going to get scared as you get closer while breaking them, you're already right in front of her. This whole thing makes no sense, and it's really only there to further emulate the original.
Alana eventually escapes, but runs into, of all people, Kenny. Kenny goes on a creepy little talk about how he missed her and the others, how he still wants his kiss, yadda, yadda, yadda. Alana kisses him, then bites off his tongue, thinking Kenny was the killer. Then the freaking magician comes up out of nowhere and shoots Kenny. Where the hell did he come from? Where has he been? Why did he bring a gun onto a train full of students? What even is this movie anymore? The sound cuts away, and the music swells as Alana, Sadie, and the magician walk away as if the movie was over. Even if the movie had ended there, it didn't earn that music swell.
Moving on, Alana is on her own in a compartment, looking at pictures of her friends, when she sees something. It turns out Kenny couldn't have been the killer, because he was at the party dressed as a bunny the whole time! Le gasp! Alana grabs an ax, ready to kill the magician who she is absolutely, 100% sure is the real killer. However, when she and Sadie get to the dressing room, they find the magician's (apparently) dead body, stabbed with a bunch of swords.
With no leads left, Sadie and Alana head back to the caboose to confer with Carne. Carne tells Sadie to go back and grab the magician's gun, while she stays behind and protects Alana. It's then revealed that Carne was the killer the whole time! Again, le gasp. Carne was Kenny's mother, a twist that everyone and their mother saw coming. Carne attacks Alana, stabbing her multiple times before dragging her to the door of the caboose. She plans to throw Alana off the train, finally finishing her revenge for Kenny. Sadie comes back and tries to shoot the lock on the other door, but Carne had already emptied the gun beforehand. Alana then gets the upper hand by taking the knife out of her chest and stabbing Carne before shoving her off the train.
Later, we see Alana in an ambulance, safe after a night full of terror and peril. Also, somehow, the magician is apparently alive? I don't know, I saw paramedics wheeling off someone who looked like him, and he seemed to be alive there. Truly, his greatest trick yet. We then move back down the train tracks to where Carne had been shoved off, because yadda, yadda, yadda, one last scare. Sorry movie, I don't think a sequel is coming. Besides, what would be the point? But that's the question that defines this movie: What was even the point?
Still, the film was stupid enough to be enjoyable which is why it's getting a 4. Still, I can't but feel we just got fed more of the same crock Gus Van Sant sold with with his Psycho remake.
Nerdy frat pledge Kenny is promised a kiss from Alana, but what he gets instead is a kiss from a corpse. Now, that is all from the original, but here they actually explain the whole thing about the corpse before the prank even happens, which robs us of the reveal of it in the bed. While this is a change from the first story, it's not a very good one, but we're just getting started. Either way, others involved in this prank are Doc, Mo, and some others I don't remember nor care about.
Now it's three years later, and the friends are going to a graduation party on a train, this time being more around Halloween time instead of New Year's. Frankly, I'm fine with that change, it just gives more reason to make it a costume party. Someone kills a guy in a clown costume at the train station, stealing his costume so as to sneak aboard unnoticed. Now, many people have pointed out the similarity there, but I will begrudgingly defend the remake here. The original wasn't a clown costume, it was clearly Groucho Marx, while the remake opts for a regular scary clown.
On board the train (or maybe before they board, I don't care that much), we learn that the fraternity has a new president who's trying to clean it up a bit (and who apparently doesn't deserve a name - I vote we call him Columbo Jr for fun), upsetting Doc to no end. There's also an edgy magician who acts suspicious, a dude named Jackson in a lizard suit (like the original), a kindly train conductor named Carne, and her assistant Sadie. Killer clown tries and fails to stalk a few people, unable to get to tier 3 in time, and so settles for killing Jackson. Sadie later finds a dead Jackson sans lizard suit, so now we know that the killer has switched costumes. This was one of the big selling points of the original Terror Train, the costume switching meant you were never sure who the killer could be. Unfortunately, this is the only costume switch this time around, which makes me wonder why they brought it back at all.
Yadda, yadda, yadda, dumb, horny students get up to dumb, horny things. Sadie discovers body number one, but becomes convinced that it's just a prank. The lizard kills again, and this time his victim is a witch. We get more suspicious behavior from the magician, more dumb stuff from the students, and more of Sadie finding a body, this time with Alana accompanying her. Meanwhile, in the main party room, Mo has his throat slit while everyone is distracted by Red Herring's (sorry, the magician's) disappearing act. Alana and Sadie get back just in time to see Mo die, and I'm left wondering why I should care. I don't doubt that the actors are probably trying their best here (well, maybe they aren't, who knows), but the characters are just the worst mix of jerkish and bland that I couldn't really care less.
After Doc pulls the emergency brake, everyone finally realizes that this isn't another prank, and are finally a bit put off. At least, I think they are, most of them stand around chattering in a normal way in the immediate aftermath of this revelation, so maybe they're all fine with it. Carne says that the train will resume moving after they get a headcount on everyone present and conduct a search of the train, However, Doc doesn't want to hang around for the headcount, and he and Alana go to a VIP room to lock themselves in. After all, staying in a crowded room didn't help Mo, so how would that help them? Honestly, that's the most sensible thing I've heard all movie, and it actually started to sway me toward Doc's side here. Then I remembered that they were about to lock themselves in the VIP room, and anyone who's seen the original knows that's a sign that Doc is going to die now. Alana leaves to go searching for the magician, figuring he must be behind the killings, Sadie searches the train with an ax, and Doc gets tormented with videos of Kenny in the VIP room. Doc checks all of two places for the killer before giving up, while the lizard just walks up from out of frame, abandoning the cool mirror reveal from the first. Doc's throat gets slit in an uneventful way, and the lizard starts to saw off his head, but it cuts away before we get to see anything good.
Alana, Sadie, and Carne meet up in the party room, and go to the dressing room to check for the magician, who is predictably nowhere to be found. Carne breaks off from the others who make their back down the train, and find Doc's dead body. Unfortunately, we still don't get to see it. We see some legs poking out, a severed head falling out of a closet, and that's really it. Now, in the original the entire room was coated in blood, it was like wallpaper, with bits and pieces of Doc strewn about as decoration. Still, the killer might be back here somewhere, so best put Alana up in a nearby room while Sadie waits outside with an ax. What a great idea. Sadie hears something down the hall and goes to check it out, but it turns out the killer was actually on the other end of the hall, waiting for her to leave. Our killer, once again dressed as a clown, uses an identical ax to Sadie's (down to the little streaks on the blade) on the bed Alana's supposed to be in, but was tricked by the classic dummy routine.
Alana decks the killer and runs, starting a short chase that ends with Alana and the killer in a storage area in (I believe) the caboose. Alana locks herself in a little cage back there, and the killer grabs a long pole with a hook-like thing on the end to reach her with. He uses it to smash out the overhead lights before trying to skewer Alana through the bars of her pen. Now, this is all from the original film, but it doesn't quite work here. In the original he smashed out the lights to make the room darker, slowly getting closer to Alana with each light. Here, the room is much smaller than it was in the first, and even after the overhead lights are smashed there are still bright lights all around that the killer doesn't smash, making his earlier actions pointless. Why smash the overheads if you're not going to smash the others? Also, why smash them at all? She's not going to get scared as you get closer while breaking them, you're already right in front of her. This whole thing makes no sense, and it's really only there to further emulate the original.
Alana eventually escapes, but runs into, of all people, Kenny. Kenny goes on a creepy little talk about how he missed her and the others, how he still wants his kiss, yadda, yadda, yadda. Alana kisses him, then bites off his tongue, thinking Kenny was the killer. Then the freaking magician comes up out of nowhere and shoots Kenny. Where the hell did he come from? Where has he been? Why did he bring a gun onto a train full of students? What even is this movie anymore? The sound cuts away, and the music swells as Alana, Sadie, and the magician walk away as if the movie was over. Even if the movie had ended there, it didn't earn that music swell.
Moving on, Alana is on her own in a compartment, looking at pictures of her friends, when she sees something. It turns out Kenny couldn't have been the killer, because he was at the party dressed as a bunny the whole time! Le gasp! Alana grabs an ax, ready to kill the magician who she is absolutely, 100% sure is the real killer. However, when she and Sadie get to the dressing room, they find the magician's (apparently) dead body, stabbed with a bunch of swords.
With no leads left, Sadie and Alana head back to the caboose to confer with Carne. Carne tells Sadie to go back and grab the magician's gun, while she stays behind and protects Alana. It's then revealed that Carne was the killer the whole time! Again, le gasp. Carne was Kenny's mother, a twist that everyone and their mother saw coming. Carne attacks Alana, stabbing her multiple times before dragging her to the door of the caboose. She plans to throw Alana off the train, finally finishing her revenge for Kenny. Sadie comes back and tries to shoot the lock on the other door, but Carne had already emptied the gun beforehand. Alana then gets the upper hand by taking the knife out of her chest and stabbing Carne before shoving her off the train.
Later, we see Alana in an ambulance, safe after a night full of terror and peril. Also, somehow, the magician is apparently alive? I don't know, I saw paramedics wheeling off someone who looked like him, and he seemed to be alive there. Truly, his greatest trick yet. We then move back down the train tracks to where Carne had been shoved off, because yadda, yadda, yadda, one last scare. Sorry movie, I don't think a sequel is coming. Besides, what would be the point? But that's the question that defines this movie: What was even the point?
Still, the film was stupid enough to be enjoyable which is why it's getting a 4. Still, I can't but feel we just got fed more of the same crock Gus Van Sant sold with with his Psycho remake.