The Midnight Meat Train
The Midnight Meat Train
Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura
Horror
2008
Rated R
Four-and-a-half stars, despite the ridiculous title.
*
Aspiring art photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper) shows his portfolio to gallery owner Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields), only for her to tell him his photos are no good. They're too restrained. Hoping to catch something more intense, Leon goes down into the subway and spies a mugging. Success: he gets some brilliant shots and scares off the attackers, saving the victim's life.
Bradley Cooper and Brooke Shields
…Except the next day, she's reported missing.
Leon last saw her boarding a midnight train, and begins riding it himself. The things he sees there grow steadily nastier, and his obsession with capturing every bit of filth on film soon drives him deep into secrets he'll soon wish he didn't know.
Midnight Meat Train is Clive Barker, and there are certain characters fans can easily associate with Clive Barker. Most prominent is the regular person who grows obsessed with something (gambling in Damnation Game, sex and murder in Hellraiser) and becomes more and more twisted by their new addiction as the story goes on. Leon is one of these, and Cooper shows his transformation brilliantly. The man is a hell of an actor; I never had trouble
Don't explative deleted with Mahogany.
doubting Leon's obsession with capturing images of horror.
Vinnie Jones is terrifying as the silent murderer known only as Mahogany. With almost as much screen time as Cooper but no dialogue, Johnes had to work with his huge frame and expressive face, and he scared the crap out of me in a few scenes (a screen shot of one of them is to the left). Mahogany had a lot of personality, and I really, really want another movie with him in it.
Not surprisingly, Midnight Meat Train features blood. Lots and lots of blood and twitching limbs and eyeballs popping out of people's heads and the occasional beheading. Personally, I found it kind of silly (there's a great DVD featurette where Jones makes fun of all the gore), but that's just personal preference; if you like blood and guts in your horror films, you'll love it.
Much more interesting to me personally, it features dark, gritty sets that left me on edge wondering what would pop out of the shadows, great acting from the supporting cast, and a twist ending that I can pretty much guarantee you won't see coming. Barker might write similar characters in many of his stories–which is not a criticism, as most prolific authors do this–but no one has an imagination like he does when it comes to creating horrific creatures and shadows of the deep.
Following you? Me? No, of course not!
Midnight Meat Train did not get a wide theater release for some unfathomable reason, but it's found new life on DVD. I recommend it to fans of any kind of horror.
*
R
