The Night House (2020) & Terror Train (1980) Reviews

Happy Halloween everyone!

I have two posts ready to go for later today (reviews for Society & for Halloween 1-6 which I rewatched this month). But I just recently watched these two horror movies for the first time so figured I better squeeze in quick reviews.

I’ll also say that I spent yesterday & part of today watching classic horror on the Horror Channel in the U.K. I’ve just posted My Top Ten Pre-1970 Horror Movies this week & was saying it’s terrible that I’ve not seen so many of the old classics so it’s great this has given me the chance to see some. It’s a shame it’s unlikely I’ll get around to reviewing them today but, oh well. I guess there’s no law that says I can’t review them after Halloween. Here’s what I’ve seen:

Dracula (1931) – 8/10
Frankenstein (1931) – 7.5/10
Bride Of Frankenstein (1935) – 7/10
The Wolf Man (1941) – 7/10

And I’ll be watching The Invisible Man (1933) today.

Now here are my brief thoughts on these two movies…

The Night House (2020)

Directed by David Bruckner

Starring: Rebecca Hall, Sarah Goldberg, Evan Jonigkeit, Stacy Martin, Vondie Curtis-Hall

Plot Synopsis: (via Wikipedia)
The Night House stars Rebecca Hall as a widow who discovers a dark secret about the house her late architect husband built.

My Opinion:

Was super excited to see a NEW film on Disney Plus! Well, Disney Star or whatever the grownup bit of Disney Plus is called – I believe America doesn’t get that?? Yay, we have something you don’t for once! And I can count it as a 2021 release as it’s the first time available in the U.K. This follows Disney also getting The Empty Man, which was quite new too. And it’s a supernatural horror where the hubby had some secret his widow now has to discover and that’s SO my type of guilty pleasure horror movie. Plus I thought the poster at the very top of this post looked pretty cool. Oh! And I thought the director’s film The Ritual was pretty good.

This movie was okay but disappointing. It’s the kind of thing I’ll forget in a year but at least the story kept me interested. I didn’t love Rebecca Hall’s character – Something about her was kind of annoying but she did well enough as a newly widowed woman who is grieving & then having weird shit happen to her. I don’t think the story was explored well enough plus we’re kind of just left hanging at the end without a satisfying resolution. Not that horror has that very often anyway! And she of course watched videos of her & the hubby from their wedding, etc, because that’s a requirement in these supernatural stories where someone has just lost their spouse. I did like a couple of creepy shots that were pretty effective in which Hall’s character saw shapes in her house, though. It was also a good setting, in a lovely secluded house on a lake. Cliché again, yes, but that’s because that’s the perfect setting for this type of story.

This was fine. It passed the time one afternoon & is the type of supernatural horror I go for but it could’ve been better.

My Rating: 6/10

Terror Train (1980)

Directed by Roger Spottiswoode

Starring: Ben Johnson, Jamie Lee Curtis, Hart Bochner, Sandee Currie, Timothy Webber, Derek MacKinnon, Anthony Sherwood, Joy Boushel, Vanity, D.D. Winters, Greg Swanson, Howard Busgang, Elizabeth Cholette, David Copperfield

Plot Synopsis: (via IMDb)
Three years after a prank went terribly awry, the six college students responsible are targeted by a masked killer at a New Year’s Eve party aboard a moving train.

My Opinion:

I’d never heard of this. An ’80s slasher!! I figured now was the perfect time to check it out as it’s October & I’ve also just spent the month rewatching Halloween 1-6, the first two of which obviously also star Jamie Lee Curtis (I’ve done a post reviewing all of those which I’ll post later today). I can see why Terror Train isn’t more well known but it’s not awful.

It starts out with a pretty pathetic prank being played on a fellow medical student at some party but the guy is unstable already, I guess, as it drives him off the deep end & he ends up having to be committed. Three years later, the students are having a party on a train & the bullied boy decides it’s the perfect time for revenge. Is it a Halloween party?! I guess I just assumed that as they’re all dressed up in costumes. And are parties on trains a thing? It looks like fun! Anyway – the bullied boy goes after everyone involved in the prank, including Jamie Lee Curtis who didn’t actually want to be part of the prank & I think didn’t know what they’d actually had planned for the prank so she’s had guilt over it ever since. And she has a much better hairdo than that frizzy hair she had in Halloween.

I liked this fine. It’s actually not overly “bloody” so not sure if it can be considered a slasher. Probably, but the kills are pretty mild (which is fine with me as I’m pretty wussy). And I know nothing whatsoever about filmmaking but I thought this looked quite good for a film from 1980?? It just didn’t have that low budget sort of look like many movies, especially horror movies, from that time. And David Copperfield is in it as a magician, surprisingly, that I guess they’ve hired as their entertainment. Didn’t know he’d ever done any acting? He was pretty good in this – I liked his character. I saw him live once when I was a kid! Got an autograph afterwards. Think I lost it.

This is well worth a watch for fans of ’80s slashers, especially if you like Jamie Lee Curtis. But it’s a bit slow & I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone who isn’t into movies from this era as there are much better ones to check out. Oh – Vanity has a small role in this (she was so pretty). I kind of recognised some other faces, I think, but not well. One of my favorite things about watching ’80s movies I never saw is to see familiar faces. Always love that! So I enjoyed this but I can’t say it’s one I’d have watched over & over again in the ’80s like I did with things such as the Elm Street films. It was worth a one-time watch, though.

My Rating: 6/10