Aka: Clive Barker's Midnight
Meat Train (USA)
(promotional title)
Director:Ryuhei Kitamura
Writers :Jeff Buhler (screenplay)
Clive Barker (short story "The Midnight Meat
Train")
Cast---
Bradley Cooper ...  Leon Kauffman
Leslie Bibb ...  Maya
Brooke Shields ...  Susan Hoff
Vinnie Jones ...  Mahogany
Roger Bart ...  Jurgis
Tony Curran ...  Driver
Barbara Eve Harris ...  Detective Lynn Hadley

Runtime: 98 min | USA: 100 min
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN (2008)

Clive Barker is a cool guy. He paints insane pieces of art, writes extremely bizarre novels soaked in
hellishly imaginative elements, directed a few of the best horror pictures of the last century, and went on
to inspire a ton of great films like "CANDYMAN" and a ton of sort-of okay films like this one.

Leon is an up-and-coming photographer who unknowingly stumbles upon a series of heinously violent
murders happening on the late night subway train to nowhere. Following the death of a young model he
last saw boarding a subway train, he begins to suspect that a tall, silent weirdo (played with stoic charm
by Vinny Jones) carrying an old leather doctor's bag is responsible for the murder as well as many
others. His girlfriend (played by super cutie hottie Leslie Bibb) thinks he's going crazy, but he starts to
become obsessed with the strange, silent giant (almost to Hitchcock levels...almost). He doesn't know
what he's onto for sure until he catches the man in the act of smashing people's skulls in with his
stainless steel hammer.

He is caught by this psycho, who's name turns out to be Mahogany (???), and instead of being killed, he
is scratched up by some faceless demon (more on this later). He arrives home, traumatized, his
girlfriend freaks out. She starts investigating this Mahogany guy and ends up getting her friends
murdered when they sneak back into his apartment. She, however, thinks he is still alive, and when the
cops won't offer any help but hint at a bigger, darker conspiracy involving the murders, she takes
matters into her own hands. She follows Mahogany into the subway system and there she finds Leon,
who has come for war. He is dressed in his butcher's best and is planning to take Mahogany out.

The third act of this film involves so many interesting (if implausible and unnecessary) twists that I really
don't want to ruin them for you here. Especially since the film was barely seen by anyone, so I don't want
to ruin it for anyone who wants to catch in on dvd or Showtime for that matter. Let's just say Mahogany
and Leon fight it out over Leslie Bibb and in the end the truth behind this horrifying conspiracy is
revealed. Remember when I wrote "more on that later" above? I lied...I don't feel like ruining it, because
once you find out what is really going on you may love the movie or consider it incredibly stupid. My
opinion on the overall film including the strange ending is as follows:

I liked this film, but I feel it should have been gorier. Sure there was blood and violence, but most of the
red stuff was CG so it doesn't count as gore in my book. This movie was directed by Ryuhei Kitamura,
and those who have seen his masterpiece "VERSUS" will be disappointed in the pedestrian way he
directs the film. His approach is more American than usual, and he does almost nothing to infuse the film
with the crazy kinetic energy of his earlier films. The film was unceremoniously dumped into dollar
theaters by the new regime of assholes at Lionsgate, and even though that is a shame, there is no
reason this film couldn't have gone direct-to-dvd. Sure it's got hottie Leslie Bibb in it, and Vinny Jones is
a kickass force to be reckoned with, but when you get right down to the meat of thing, there's only bone
and gristle.

                                                                                                           - Jose Prendes
N / A
IMAGES
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
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