Year of Release: 2008
Director: Ryuhei Kitamura
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb, Vinnie Jones, Brooke Shields, Roger Bart, Tony Curran, Peter Jacobson
Genre: Horror, Mystery
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 5
Watch it on Amazon
Synopsis and Review:
Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura followed a prolific directorial career in Japan, with "The Midnight Meat Train", an adaptation of Clive Barker's short story with the same title. The film follows the story of Leon, a photographer trying to build a career in New York. He lives with his girlfriend, the loving and supportive Maya, who is a waitress. While capturing enticing and gritty photos, Leon is drawn to a man leaving the subway station, impeccably suited, very late in the night. He starts following this oddly striking man, and discovers he is a butcher. As he probes deeper, he discovers that the man is actually a serial killer who kills people on a train carriage, after midnight. Leon becomes a target for the killer, and when Maya and their friend Jurgis try to help, they both get tangled in a gruesome scenario that goes beyond all that they originally envisioned.
"The Midnight Meat Train" holds a lot of Clive Barker's story trademarks, namely the progressive evolution of a seemingly normal situation to something menacing and supernatural. This film and its director capture the life of the young couple at the center of the story successfully, even if a bit generically, but as Leon's obsession grows, and as the gruesomeness of the deaths escalates, the film takes a very dark and graphic turn, that also turns out to be the least interesting element about it. The final revelation of the film is once again gratuitous, failing to capture the suspenseful thread that it had built throughout the narrative. The film could have been more successful through suggestion, rather than through exposition that is both literal and limiting. The cast tries to embed these characters with as much dimension as possible, but in the end only Bradley Cooper and Vinnie Jones actually create memorable characters: one showcasing the descent into a dark valley of horror and the other, by communicating menace with physical glances and an imposing physical presence. The cinematography from Jonathan Sela is cold and menacing, as is the score from Johannes Kobilke and Robb Williamson. A film that could have benefited from more subtlety, but nonetheless worth watching.
"The Midnight Meat Train" holds a lot of Clive Barker's story trademarks, namely the progressive evolution of a seemingly normal situation to something menacing and supernatural. This film and its director capture the life of the young couple at the center of the story successfully, even if a bit generically, but as Leon's obsession grows, and as the gruesomeness of the deaths escalates, the film takes a very dark and graphic turn, that also turns out to be the least interesting element about it. The final revelation of the film is once again gratuitous, failing to capture the suspenseful thread that it had built throughout the narrative. The film could have been more successful through suggestion, rather than through exposition that is both literal and limiting. The cast tries to embed these characters with as much dimension as possible, but in the end only Bradley Cooper and Vinnie Jones actually create memorable characters: one showcasing the descent into a dark valley of horror and the other, by communicating menace with physical glances and an imposing physical presence. The cinematography from Jonathan Sela is cold and menacing, as is the score from Johannes Kobilke and Robb Williamson. A film that could have benefited from more subtlety, but nonetheless worth watching.
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