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When is a Terror Train remake NOT a Terror Train remake? When it's a movie called Train, which kinda began as a Terror Train remake, but definitely isn't anymore. And we know this for sure because someone out there is very interested in making an actual Terror Train remake.

Will all this going on, you might actually be duped into believing that Roger Spottiswoode's Terror Train somehow demands a remake -- when in fact it's just another slasher flick that Jamie Lee Curtis did right after Halloween because that's all she was being offered at the time. Aside from the fact that the flick features unlikely co-stars like Hart Bochner, Ben Johnson and David Copperfield (as "Ken the Magician"), there's not much to distinguish Terror Train from, say, Killer Car, Eerie Elevator, or Satanic Scooter. OK, so I just made those up.

Here's how the two new trains break down, as Shock sees it: Turns out that Train (which stars Thora Birch and still yearns for an American distributor) is more like "Hostel on rails," whereas a totally new project (being spearheaded by producer Phil Goldfine) aims to be a "true" remake of Terror Train. As if that actually matters because nobody except the hardcore horror fans even REMEMBER Terror Train and I certainly didn't hear any of them clamoring for a remake. But Mr. Goldfine's previous credits include sequels like The Art of War 2, The Lost Boys 2, and The Dukes of Hazzard 2 -- so switching over to those types of remakes shouldn't be all that difficult.

When is an upcoming horror remake NOT a remake? Well, when the director says it's not, I suppose. That's what filmmaker Gideon Raff told STYD.com about his upcoming re-adaptation of Roger Spottiswoode's 1980 slasher flick Terror Train. Yes, the one that starred Jamie Lee Curtis, Ben Johnson, Hart Bochner and ... David Copperfield. According to Raff, it's not a remake at all, and the project is so much NOT a remake that they've jettisoned the word "terror" from the title! Currently shooting in Bulgaria, the Nu Image production is now called simply Train -- although I'd be careful not to mistake the flick for the impending Clive Barker adaptation Midnight Meat Train -- just because it's really irritating when you get two movies jumbled up in your head. Believe me, I know.

Apparently this particular remake "nothing to do with the original. I'm a big fan of that film, but this is not a remake, it's an original screenplay. It's about a group of American athletes competing in Eastern Europe and they're supposed to get on a train to continue the competition. And our group of people miss the train 'cause they went partying the night before. They get on a different train to catch up with their teammates and horror ensues." That's what Mr. Raff told Shock, anyway. Which leads me to what I consider a fairly logical question: Why is everyone calling this a remake? I'm not convinced that freakin' Terrror Train is so well-remembered that it'll bring in the fringe fans like Rob Zombie's Halloween revisit probably will.

Anyway, production on "Train Minus the Terror" is winding down -- although with Thora Birch in the lead it might take the flick a year or two to find distribution. Nothing against the lovely Ms. Birch, but her track record with horror flicks isn't exactly sterling. (Both The Hole and Dark Corners were watchable enough, but they also took forever to find a (small) audience here in the States.) Hopefully Mr. Raff's deviations from the source material can make for an enjoyable little horror movie. It's not like Terror Train is some holy relic of a horror flick, anyway. (Check out our previous reports on this project here and here.)

I and the public know
What all schoolchildren learn
Those to whom evil is done
Do evil in return.

-- W.H. Auden, September 1, 1939

Steven Spielberg's Munich begins at the 1972 Olympics, where a group of men hesitate at the locked gates of the Olympic Village. A group of American athletes also approaching the gates laugh – should have gotten back from the beer garden earlier, guys – and then help the men over the gate so they can get into the compound. Once inside, the men take off their athletic jackets, put on ski masks, take AK-47 rifles from their bags, enter the building where Israel's athletes are housed … and enter history.

Munich is not the story of what happened that day – although Spielberg captures the tension and terror of the subsequent siege and deaths like the master craftsman he is. That story has been told – and told superbly – in the Oscar-winning documentary One Day in September. Munich is the story of what happened after: how Israel determined that such an affront could not go unpunished, and created a group – a hit squad – to find, and kill, the men responsible. Driven by recent history, many filmmakers and films  – including Spielberg's too-swiftly dismissed War of the Worlds – are trying to construct allegories for the realities we now face. With Munich, Spielberg's trying something far riskier, and far more audacious: Turning the real into an allegory. Spielberg doesn't attain greatness here, but the attempt is fascinating to watch.