This was a film that The Sports Guy wrote about as one best sports movies of all time, but I'd never seen till now. It wasn't on HBO when I was a kid, and I never heard anything about it till I was a grown-up film geek. Which I'm surprised by, because Breaking Away is a classic sports film, with all the clichéd scenes right out of screenplay 101, while also being a touching coming-of-age dramedy. It has great performances by the four lead actors; Dennis Christopher in the lead role of Dave Stoller, Dennis Quaid as his best friend Mike, their two good buddies, the reliably funny Daniel Stern is Cyril, and Moocher played by Jackie Earle Haley in his youth-prime, right after he played Kelly Leak in the Bad News Bears films.

Dave Stoller is the best bicyclist in a small mill town in Indiana. Which is like saying he's the fastest goldfish in a tank of goldfish. He wants to compete with the big fish, specifically the Italians. He even likes to pretend he's Italian, wearing their clothing and speaking non-stop with an Italian accent, which drives his blue collar father batty. The relationship with his parents feels very realistic, you can understand why the father is upset that after graduating all his son wants to do is ride bikes and talk funny, while his mother, a romantic at heart, sticks up for her only son and his dreams. His father tries to squash them by making him work at his used car shop, but is annoyed that his son is still happy. "You're supposed to be miserable by the end of the day," he yells at him.

Dave's friends are happy to waste away their youth at the quarry, where they swim and try to show off for the college girls. One of whom, Dave impresses by pretending to be an Italian exchange student. Dennis Quaid's character Mike, likes to think he's the best athlete in town, but when he's shown up by a college kid, he's raging mad and brings his friends in on some juvenile ways of getting revenge. Their true chance comes in the form of a bike race, which Dave will anchor. But his focus is on the Italians, who are coming into town for a long distance event, where he'll finally get a chance to show his worth. His confidence is shattered when the Italians do something nasty to him, leaving his friends to pump him back up to get back on his bike.

Breaking Away is utterly predictable in all the right ways. The boys are outcasts because they're "cutters", sons of the mill workers, that don't go to college. Dave's relationship with his parents and the way he teaches his father a thing or two. Dave's love interest, and the way he lies to get her to like him. Dave's rise to the top of his bicycling world, before crashing down and rising up again. There are training sequences and music montages. It's one of those films where you know exactly where it's going at all times, but that's why you love it. The film is well made, it's genuinely funny and moving, with great acting from all the characters, good guys to love and bad guys to hate, beautiful wide-screen photography that wonderfully captures the bike races, where you know exactly what's going on at all times. It's the rare film, where everything feels just right, nothing is out place and there are no bad surprises. - Grade: B+ (Seen on 7/7/08)

I have no idea why it took me so long to get to this film; a fairly well known 80’s slasher flick, starring Jamie Lee Curtis in her “Scream-Queen” prime, it should have been on my play-list a long time ago. My only excuse was that it never played on HBO while I was a kid and for the last fifteen years I’d never given it more expectation than some second-rate Halloween knockoff; which was my own conception, because it really has very little to do with Halloween beyond Jamie Lee being stalked by a killer.

The film starts with a fairly typical back-story for the eventual psychopathic-killer. All the main characters are at a Frat party, while they’re freshman, in order to prove themselves rush worthy a couple of the guys pull a prank on one of the nerds; they get Jamie Lee to lure him upstairs, to where they have a dead body lying in bed waiting for him (they're pre-med); she lures him to the bed, when they both discover the nastiness waiting for him. She gets pissed that what she thought was a harmless prank turned out to be so disgustingly mean, and he goes absolutely bonkers. Cut to four years later when they’re all graduating, and the guys who pulled the prank are now the kings of the Frat and are having the party of the year on a private train. There’s a small mention of the nerd, that he went off to some nut-house, and was just released; obviously we know where he’s going to show up.

What I initially passed off as a lame location for a slasher flick, actually turned out to be a pretty great one. Once the train is moving, you can’t get off, you can’t move laterally, only up and down the aisles and there are tons of doors for the killer to pop out of; it’s such a great space, that I think they’ll probably be remaking this in the next few years, except for the fact that nobody rides trains anymore, maybe make it a European vacation?

a The killer is also pretty memorable. Since it’s costume party, he’s able to wear a wicked looking Groucho Marx mask the whole time, without seeming suspect. There’s a great little moment at the beginning of the film, where he stabs a guy in the back and everybody thinks the stabee is playing a joke, stumbling about with this large knife sticking out of his spine; only later do they realize what happened to him. The kills are okay; too many people are killed by editing, with the film cutting away just before the knife drops, but there are a few decent ones, especially when Doc, the main Frat boy, gets his comeuppance. Maybe that’s why this isn’t greatly regarded horror film; because nothing stacks up with the Friday the 13th or Halloween deaths of the same time period.

If you’re looking for a fairly good horror film, that isn’t full of gore, you could do a lot worse than Terror Train. Jamie Lee Curtis is in great form here. The film is pretty well made, with good direction by Roger Spottiswoode, nice looking photography, with surprisingly good acting; and there is some actual suspense. There’s also some good unintentional 80's humor, with an extremely young David Copperfield starring as the party magician, who serves as a possible suspect. I was really surprised by how much I enjoyed this film, wish I could have seen it earlier in my life. Now I have to rectify another Jamie Lee 80's horror film, by watching Prom Night.