whose prank on an unbalanced nerd three years earlier (shades of CARRIE) leads to Grand Guignol retribution. There are none of the elaborate makeup effects that characterized the genre in the wake of FRIDAY THE 13th, but the film is effec- tive enough in its style to sur- vive quite well without them. Supporting name talents include Ben Johnson as a sympathetic train conductor and pop illusion- ist David Copperfield, who more or less plays a less successful, bitter version of himself. Stanley Kubrick’s cinematographer, John Alcott (BARRY LYNDON, THE SHINING), bathes each successive compartment in a unique color scheme; and as Curtis runs the length of the train, one is reminded of the chambers of Propsero’s castle in THE MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH (1964), another horror film involving a costume party. Fox gives us a choice of
standard ratio or, on the flip side, a gorgeous anamorphic rendering framed at 1.85:1. Alcott’s complexly blinking and strobing light effects put the digital format to the test; the image may pause briefly and pixelate around the 4m mark, depending on your DVD player’s sensitivity. Both a mono and stereo track are provided, plus a Spanish-language alternative and the film’s theatrical trailer.
ZATOICHI 10:
ZATOICHI’S REVENGE Zatoichi nidan-giri
1965, Home Vision Entertainment, DD-2.0/16:9/LB/ST/+, $19.99, 83m 4s, DVD-1 By Bill Cooke
When sightless masseur Ichi
the Blind (Shintaro Katsu) comes to familiar Azabu Bridge, he decides to give his mentor, Master Hikonoichi, a surprise
10
Illusionist David Copperfield mystifies Jamie Lee Curtis and a railcar full of soon-to-be-coldcuts in TERROR TRAIN.
visit; only he’s horrified to dis- cover the elder masseur has been murdered by an unknown culprit—the only piece of evi- dence being a toggle torn from the killer’s purse—while his daughter is being held at the local brothel to pay off a debt owed to yakuza boss Tatsugoro. Ichi wanders through town, blowing his reed-pipe and jos- tling the toggle to lure out the guilty, who turns out to be a skill- ful samurai hired by Tatsugoro and the region’s corrupt inten- dant to prevent Hikonoichi’s political ascension. This superior, exciting epi-
sode is marked by a stunning display of swordsmanship from Katsu; in one impressive passage, a hand-held camera captures the action for a long, uninterrupted stretch, with its
shakiness reflect ive of the men’s terror. Composer Akira Ifukube returns, reprising the Western guitar colorization in- troduced in ZATOICHI 8 [re- viewed last issue]. While the film is expertly photographed, its sound betrays the production’s rushed schedule, as a camera motor is often annoyingly au- dible. St i ll , director Aki ra Inoue found time to experi- ment in post-production, effec- tively dropping out the sound completely during Hikonoichi’s death, save for the strikes from an off-camera attacker’s sword. Flashbacks to this key event are presented in con- trastive B&W and, together with the fusion of Western and Eastern ideas in the music, viewers will be reminded of Quentin Tarantino’s similar
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