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If you’re looking for the best slasher movies to stream for free, I want to remind you of such a movie that somewhat belongs to the current of classic slasher flicks: Terror Train. It’s possible to stream both the original (one of the best 1980s slasher flicks for me), the remake, and the remake’s sequel for free on Tubi.
The only catch is that Tubi has commercial breaks, but there are ways to circumvent them (I do it with a browser plugin) even though doing it isn’t fair for the platform. I don’t know, there are persons that just can’t stand commercials (me, for one, I don’t watch TV with commercials for like a lifetime).
Terror Train is a very original terror story and a classic to reckon with in every slasher movie lover’s list of memorable terror movies. This is the second or third comparison I do between an original horror, terror, or thriller movie and its remake, the last comparison was negative but not this time.
An annoying group of prank-loving college students go partying on a train. Because of something they did three years prior, they are hunted down and killed.
The original Terror Train was made in 1980 while the remake is from 2022. The original was very memorable for me in general, and because of the fun scenes in which David Copperfield appears in particular.
The remake is effective because it’s not a useless retelling of the story but an actual revision that plays differently than the old Terror Train of 1980.
The popular kids of a fraternity play a boorish prank on a freshman pledge, and they scar him mentally. Three years later they decide to have a frat party in a moving train, but they will be paying the wages of their past bad deeds.
The lead of the remake (Robyn Alomar) is nothing to write home about. I think Jamie Lee Curtis was by far much more credible as a sorority girl having to deal with such a situation.
For some reason, Emma Elle Paterson as Mitchy was the female character I liked the most. She gets mauled early in the movie and I would have liked her to have more screen time; to continue laughing at the character’s slutty quirks.
It may be that the magician’s face remembered me of a friend of mine that passed on not long ago, that I paid focused attention to the scenes featuring him. All the while remembering he was not David Copperfield. The tricks part was okie-dokie, atmospheric, but not quite as dazzling as the one in the original.
If you love trains, like I do, these movies are a blast to watch. Still, maybe because I’m more of a horror fan than a terror/slasher/giallo one I don’t find any of the two scary. Common psychopaths preying on a bunch of kids cause me indignation and rage rather than any kind of existential dread which horror movies with paranormal events may cause me.
That a movie isn’t scary doesn’t mean it can’t be creepy, I think. Both movies are very creepy, even for me because I’m not very claustrophobic. These movies may be creepy for anyone, but not just that. It can also be quite scary for claustrophobic watchers. Still, there’s something about being locked in a running train with a killer that can get on the nerves of anyone.
If you’re going to watch the remake and you need just a little inspiration on what to expect from it I’ll tell you. Watch it for its gross-out factor.
I don’t know if the sabbatical I took from horror had anything to do with how I felt when I watched the remake. May it be I lost the desensitization I had for grotesque and gore scenes where victims are cut in pieces? Because several scenes of the remake were hard to watch and even watching them again produces, the feeling of unease I felt when I saw them for the first time.
The original Terror Train is six minutes longer than the 2022 remake. Yet, like it often happens to me when I watch remakes, the remake gave me the sensation of being a longer movie. I fell asleep once watching it, and the next day when I continued watching it, I was too tired and stopped around the one-hour mark. So it took me three nights to finish Terror Train (2022), but I don’t have any major gripes on it. I liked it.
The night I finished it what I did was go directly and watch the original two minutes after I finished watching the remake.
It was the second time I watched the original, and I deeply enjoyed it. I would say that this time I liked it even more than the first time.
One thing I wanted to say is that the magician in the remake is not David Copperfield, nor a famous magician of the present, and he doesn’t have an assistant like in the original, but the scenes involving him are still fun.
I liked the setting of both movies. Any horror film fan that has been a long-distance train traveler knows that horror movies on moving trains have a lot of promise. I also liked that the remake gave a new spin to the story, instead of copying the original verbatim from start to finish.
What I didn’t like is that the train environment in the remake was not believable. And I don’t mean only the movie’s sets (curtains? Seriously?). It’s a moving train, remember? The actors and extras (all of them ) did a poor job of evoking the inertia-induced body staggering that one can notice in the characters of the original.
The moral from this movie is very easy to get: watch out when doing pranks on others. If the person isn’t mentally stable a joke may have very undesirable consequences.
Every fan of slasher movies should have watched the original by now. The remake updates the tale to a 40 years newer environment and the story was considerably rewritten, so fans of the original may want to check it out. What it was very noticeable was the lack of mobile phones. I can’t remember a single scene with cellphones in the remake.
If you don’t like remakes in general, or to have your favorite movies remade in particular, then don’t watch it and go for the original if you didn’t watch it already.
What Substantiates These Three Movies as Best Slasher Movies?
I’d say it’s worth watching the remake, and not just it, for three reasons:
1. It’s not the same story. While the characters and most of the plot are the same, it’s constructed differently, and the antagonist was rewritten.
2. The remake has a sequel, which the original doesn’t. I’m going to watch it tonight, I hope.
3. The three movies in this short list are free, you can watch Terror Train (1980), Terror Train (2022), and Terror Train 2 (2022) for free on Tubitv.com.
I would suggest you watch them in chronological order, and for the love of horror (and in this case terror, too), lower your expectations when it’s time to watch the two from 2022. Just chill and enjoy the ride.
© Bholenath Valsan 2023 — Terror Train (1980) Original/Remake: Best Slasher Movies
