Terror Train is a 1980 slasher film directed by Roger Spottiswoode in his directorial debut and starring Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, and Hart Bochner. Set aboard a moving train on New Year's Eve, the film follows a group of pre-medical school students holding a costume party who are targeted by a killer who steals their costumes after murdering some students to avoid being caught. It features supporting performances from Sandee Currie, Anthony Sherwood, and David Copperfield. The concept for the film was based on an idea by executive producer Daniel Grodnik, who sought to "make Halloween on a train". A full-length script for the film was composed by T. Y. Drake, and production was initiated within four months. The film was shot in Montreal between late November and late December 1979, shortly after Curtis had completed filming for Prom Night (1980). An independently produced film, Terror Train was purchased for distribution by the major studio 20th Century Fox, who had yet to release a slasher film; the studio was able to supply an expansive marketing campaign for the film that cost an estimated $5 million. It was released theatrically in the United States on October 3, 1980, grossing $8 million during its theatrical run. Plot At a Northern Illinois University fraternity's New Year's Eve party, a reluctant Alana Maxwell is coerced into participating in a prank: she lures the shy and awkward pledge Kenny Hampson into a darkened room on the promise of a sexual liaison. However, some other students have placed a woman's corpse (stolen from the university medical school during the Christmas vacation) in the bed instead. Kenny is traumatized by the prank and is sent to a psychiatric hospital. Three years later, the members of the same fraternities and sororities hold a New Year's Eve costume party aboard a train. Class clown Ed is disguised as Groucho Marx; Prank ringleader Doc Manley is disguised as a monk; Jackson is disguised as an alien lizard; Mitchy, Doc's girlfriend and Alana's best friend, is disguised as a witch; and Alana's boyfriend Mo is disguised as a bird. Also along are Carne, the train conductor, and a magician hired to entertain the crowd. Ed is murdered prior to boarding and the killer dresses himself in Ed's Groucho Marx mask, allowing him to board the train unnoticed. Ed's corpse is then crushed by the train when it takes off. As