The Midnight Meat Train
by Ryûhei Kitamura
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Actor: Bradley Cooper, Brooke Shields, Leslie Bibb, Roger Bart, Vinnie JonesDirector: Ryûhei Kitamura
Brand: LIONS GATE HOME ENT.
Producer: Anthony DiBlasi
Producer: Beth DePatie
Producer: Clive Barker
Writer: Clive Barker
Producer: David Rubin
Producer: Eric Reid
Writer: Jeff Buhler
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language)
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 100 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2009-02-17
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Lions Gate
DVD Reviews of The Midnight Meat Train
DVD Review: Hellbound train
Summary: 5 Stars
"Life is just a murdertrain a-comin'." -Dethklok
Japanese cult cinema prodigy Ryuhei Kitamura has done it again. But this time he has taken his anarchic genius and tossed us Westerners a bone by directing this American film based on a short story by Clive Barker. The result is spectacular at times and entertaining throughout. Kitamura is best known for his B-classic Versus and best loved by me for his modern samurai masterpiece Azumi. He has never made a bad film and remains a director whose latest works I anticipate with baited breath. In the past, the biggest problems with his films have been budget-related, though he proved he can make a decent flick with only two real cast members in a single room with almost no special effects in Aragami: The Raging God of Battle. Well, with a modest (but large for him) American budget and a damn fine cast including Brooke Shields and Vinnie Jones (he's STILL the Juggernaut, b!+ch!), Kitamura has staked his claim in Western horror and I like what I see. A lot. In fact, there are shades of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre throughout. This may never be quite the classic that one is, but it is almost guaranteed to gather a cult following of its own.
Our protagonist is Leon, a photographer on the verge of success with a beautiful girlfriend. One night he happens upon a dizzying beauty being assailed by a group of thugs in the subway. After bravely confronting the gang and using his head to escape harm while getting some outstandingly menacing photos in the process, he watches the girl get onto the late night train. She is never seen again. The girl turns out to be a popular model, and when her disappearance is noted by the paper, Leon becomes obsessed with the case. Turns out folks have been disappearing along that route since at least the 1800's. What follows is a riveting mystery with plenty of violence, a classic villain, and a twist that is genius even if the foreshadowing for it comes on too strong and gives it away.
Vinnie Jones is intimidating in his no-lines performance as Mahogany, the towering meathead of a butcher who rides the late train and cleans house before the last stop with a disturbingly shiny hammer in one hand and a meathook in the other. His carnage is something to behold and Kitamura's unparalleled eye for jaw-dropping shots that astound with their creativity and downright coolness is put to use on several occasions. One victim's head goes flying after taking a particularly brutal hammer blow and it is shot entirely with what I'm going to call a decapi-cam. This is my shot of the year. The other contenders are also from this film. The climactic battle aboard the train could have been another typical bad-guy-vs-good-guy slugfest, but Kitamura has the camera swooping 360 degrees around the train as we view the fight through the windows and it comes to a stop just as the combatants bust through the glass right in front of it. This is the kind of creativity American filmmakers are lacking these days. There's another fight early on where what has to be the most militant-looking black man I've ever seen steps aboard and mocks Mahogany with a gut-busting quote from Forrest Gump that had me afraid I was going to wake up my wife across the house. "Midnight Meat Train" may have a corny-sounding name, but it delivers the goods big-time. There's less nudity than I would have liked considering what a sexpot Leon's woman is, but I'll trade some brief nude shots for hammer decapitations any day.
Aside from some obvious filler, a few cutaway shots when I was screaming for more gore, and the excessive foreshadowing -which starts pretty early as genius but begins pounding you in the face as the film approaches critical mass- there is little not to love about this film if you are a horror fanatic. Craven, Carpenter, Romero, and the other horror directors have got to be shaking in their boots right now because Kitamura is coming on strong with this film. It's an absolute disgrace that this didn't get a wide theatrical release when so much garbage and so many remakes by so many hacks get millions spent on promotion and become big successes even if you can't find a single person who will admit to enjoying them. Here's an excerpt from an article that illustrates my point:
"Clive Barker was angry with the LionsGate's treatment, believing that Lionsgate president Joe Drake is essentially shortchanging other people's films in order to focus more attention on movies like The Strangers, where he received a producing credit: "The politics that are being visited upon it have nothing to do with the movie at all. This is all about ego, and though I mourn the fact that `Midnight Meat Train' was never given its chance in theaters, it's a beautifully stylish, scary movie, and it isn't going anywhere. People will find it, and whether they find it in midnight shows or they find it on DVD, they'll find it, and in the end the Joe Drakes of the world will disappear."
Amen.
"Midnight Meat Train" is the kind of original horror that I crave. I've been critical of Clive Barker in the past as his name plastered across a product often indicates mediocrity, but this film shut my mouth good and proper. Horror fans owe it to themselves to give this one a chance.
4 1/2 stars rounded up for a bleak ending that somehow made me feel elated.
Description of The Midnight Meat Train
STRUGGLING PHOTOGRAPER LEON KAUFFMAN'S OBSESSIVE PURSUIT OF DARK SUBJECT MATTER LEADS HIM INTO THE PATH OF A SERIAL KILLER, MAHOGANY, THE SUBWAY MURDERER WHO STALKS LATE-NIGHT COMMUTERS - ULTIMATELY BUTCHERING THEM IN THE MOST GRUESOME WAYSIMAGINABLE.Bestsellers in DVD
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