The Midnight Meat Train (Review)

The Midnight Meat Train

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

Every once in a while, Lion's Gate will poop out a movie worth 2 shits under it's horror label.

Fuck Saw V.

The Midnight Meat Train is that movie.

Wow, just a truly awesome-tastic horror gem. Possibly one of the best horror movies of the year.

So what did you need to pull of this feat?

You needed legendary Versus/Alive/Azumi director Ryuhei Kitamura. You needed a short story from horror writer Clive Barker (this little gem was a short from his Books of Blood series), a nifty screenplay by Jeff Buhler and some love from the horror community.

No thanks to Lion's Gate who decided to midnight movie and dollar themed this flick into theatrical oblivion.

But they did put up the loot.

TMMT is going to be a super duper horror cult classic, where it will play at midnight shows because people will WANT to see it. It hits all the right notes, leaving everybody scarred, bruised, sliced and diced and ultimately fuckin dead.

Rock on.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

A photographer hunts down a serial killer. Based on Clive Barker's short story "Midnight Meat Train"

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Leon (Bradley Cooper) is a struggling photographer who wants to caption the essence of a vague metro city. Encouraged by his girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb who's quite a hotty) ,his friend Jurgis (Robert Bart) and a gallery artist played by Brooke Shields he ventures out to the city subway system to get gritty photos of life untouched.

We venture with Leon as he unravels the puzzle of a mysterious butcher (Vinnie Jones), who he follows and eventually witnesses the madman as he kills passengers on the train.

Why is he doing this?

Could it be he was bullied when he was young?
A mysterious tape he watched?
Does he want to show his victims that life is meaningful by creating elaborate traps?
Or is it some other bullshit motive?

Nah. It's fuckin fun.

Well he does have a real motive but that's not revealed til the "gotcha" ending. And I'm more than happy that the motive was told to me at the end. It would just have gotten in the way of the awesome scenes of carnage by our crazy butcher killer.

And we get plenty of them. Gorehounds refuckin joice. So many great scenes of slaughter it was horror-gasms one right after another. Decaps here, beheadings over there. Meat hook traumas, ocular traumas, you'd think you were watching fast food nation.

All mega major horror cylinders were hit. So synchronized to perfection. And we have to thank Kitamura and Barker for being on their game on this one.

Let's start with Kitamura. What you loved about Versus, Alive and Azumi are all blended into a liquid shake of horror gooeyness. Offbeat angles, frenzy camera work and hyper kinetic movement are all in play. Scenes are set up like Edward Munch like paintings. A cinematographer's wet dream.

A POV shot of a kill is done so well, I was cheering like I hit a game winning shot.

In the climatic final action sequence, the camera moves from in the subway car, to out of it, then back in all the while still capturing the gory fight.

The film paces nicely, chiming in with dialogue to push the plot but then making the audience engulfed in the suspense. Yes, people get chased, people hide from our dastardly killer. It's all cat and mouse, but most of the scenes Kitamura shows us are the cat totally fucking up the mice.

Poor mice.

Clive Barker's story is cleverly classic Barker. Like a good book, it's all about the buildup until the end where we are given an explanation and an ending that turns everything upside down. I realized what the ending would be 30 minutes in, but it's still pretty mini decent.

But the scene stealer has got to be the menace that is Vinnie Jones. He plays the killer butcher (he's credited as Mahogany) to a tee. A Gump like, suit wearing, leather bag carrying killer who remains SILENT throughout the flick.

His main weapon of choice: a meat pounder and hook.

And boy does he do a lot of fuckin damage with it.

TMMT just reinvigorated my horror adrenaline and cravings. It's by far one of the best horror movies of the year. And the sad part is not a lot of people are going to be able to see this little masterpiece until Lion's Gate releases it on DVD.

But if you get a chance to go to a midnight showing or dollar theatre matinee, support this little gem. It's worth more than a dollar, that's for sure.

Influences

Clive Barkers novels and short stories
80s classic horror
Grindhouse horror tinged movies

Gore-ipedia (if you want to be shocked don't read)

Meat hammer trauma
3D Ocular trauma
Meat hook to the balls
Decapitations
Barnacle gooyness
Human butchery
Stab wound to the neck
Knife through the mouth
Gunshot through the eye
Arm decaps
Leg decaps
Gallons of blood
Slicing and dicing
GORE GORE GORE!!!!

Nude-ipedia (because you like boobies)

A side boob from Leslie Bibb
Some dead victim boobies

WTF moment

That POV kill scene (it was soooooooooo good)

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I'm blushing. It's so refreshing to see a movie that crosses the line, draws a new line then crosses that one too. I hope Kitamura goes the Takashi Miike route and dabbles making a couple of english language movies.

It's been so long since we had a Clive Barker fueled horror film, I think we now have to support Book of Blood as well.

OK, I'm going to go ahead and fuckin say it. The Midnight Meat Train is one of the Top 5 horror movies of 2008.

Now support this little turd so we can get more of the same.

Rating:

The Trailer



Tags:
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Categories: bradley cooper, clive barker, gore, leslie bibb, midnight meat train trailer, ryuhei kitamura, serial killer movie, splatter, splatter gore, terror train, the midnight meat train, vinnie jones