Midnight Meat Train Review
by tom elce (dr-pepperite AT hotmail DOT com)November 3rd, 2008
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
4 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Tom Elce
Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb, Roger Bart, Brooke Shields, Tony Curran, Barbara Eve Harris, Peter Jacobson, Stephanie Mace, Ted Raimi, Nora, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, Dan Callahan, Don Smith, Earl Carroll
Rated: R (MPAA), 18 (BBFC)
"Please, step away from the meat"
In a mediocre year for horror movies, "The Midnight Meat Train" reveals itself to be a welcome break from the teen-targeted garbage we have now come to expect from the major Hollywood studios. Gritty, violent, and funny unapologetic for how low-rent itself is, the film is 100 minutes of celluloid from which the palpable dread of the affair constantly drips. An inventive little horror film on the order of the esteemed Clive Barker (he behind the memorable if slightly overhyped "Hellraiser"), the film is refreshing in almost everything that goes into it, so capably made that it makes little difference that its ending goes into territory that is wacky to say the least. Its quality is a feat for a film whose title sounds like that of a porno film.
Leon Kauffman (Bradley Cooper) is a New York photographer trying to catch the perfect picture with his camera so that he might gain the approval of an esteemed contact (Brooke Shields) of his friend Jurgis (Roger Bart). One his late night travels he rescues a model from a group of threatening gang members by pointing out a nearby CCTV camera pointed in their direction. When the woman's face turns up in the newspaper the next day, Leon takes the photographs he took of the night to the police and continues visiting the train station where she disappeared. There he notices Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), a silent man in a suit who carries a briefcase with him, and whose own travels appear to coincide with a bizarre number of disappearances.
"Midnight Meat Train" is not perfect, leaving a few loose ends hanging by the conclusion and arguably playing up too much on the gore. What makes up for these faults, however, is the atmosphere director Ryuhei Kitamura brings to proceedings. As Leon begins to follow Mahogany throughout the day, we urge him to get the hell out of there, anticipating what is to come from a silent man who seems the perfect choice for a sociopathic serial killer. Naturally, Leon doesn't back off, his surveying of the suspected murderer rapidly becoming an obsession that threatens his relationship with girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb) when it seems, to her and everyone else, that Leon is going crazy.
He's not, and the results are what horror fans watching would have hoped for. Several sequences on the train where Mahogany carries out his murders are both creative, frightening and intensely bloody. Using a series of weapons to dispatch of his victims, Mahogany registers no emotion when taking human lives, this most notable part of him lending to one of "The Midnight Meat Train's" most effective sequence. Having decided to finally follow Mahogany onto a train, Leon lets himself in for a terrifying ordeal that just might confirm his suspicions. Similarly excellent, however, is a scene between Maya and Jurgis set in Mahogany's apartment.
Written by Jeff Buhler and based on Clive Barker's story, "The Midnight Meat Train" is a complete 100-minute horror film that easily puts to shame the abysmal likes of the recently released "Saw V." With fine performances all-round from Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb and Roger Bart, it is a film both magnificently developed and capably acted, a flawed but nonetheless expert little horror movie that, for all the wackiness of its denouement, also comes to a whopper of an ending. Non-fans of the horror genre most certainly might not like it, but if blood, guts and suspense are all your thing, horror fans could do much much worse.
More on 'Midnight Meat Train'...
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
