The intention here was to make a thriller, a suspense movie about some people trapped on a train, waiting for an unknown killer to strike. The problem is that they don't do very much else except wait.
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
This 1979 teenage horror film has no redeeming style: it's a straight, pedestrian cop of Halloween, from the opening shock to the climactic battle against the psycho.
The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Jay Scott
The premise - a crazed killer abused years before returns to wreak vengeance on the young - is so familiar that the audience can predict (and does: loudly) every "shock." [15 Oct 1980]
Chicago Sun-Times by Roger Ebert
Terror Train is a curious hybrid that doesn't seem to know just what it wants to be. It has, I guess, few artistic pretensions, and yet it's not a rock-bottom-budget, schlock exploitation film.
San Francisco Chronicle by Walter Addiego
The bloodshed is somewhat less gory than in many slasher films -- with stress on the "somewhat." [26 Sep 2004]