Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Starring: Bradley Cooper, Brooke Shields, Leslie Bibb, Vinnie Jones, Ted Raimi
Tagline: "The most terrifying ride you'll ever take."
Random Trivia: Based on the short story by Clive Barker. LionsGate buried the opening of this movie - perhaps not knowing how to promote it - by releasing it in $1 cinemas, crashing revenue. Clive Barker himself actually started a viral marketing campaign in protest.
The Midnight Meat Train. With a title that awesome, you've either got gonzo porn, or bloody horror on your hands. Since there's a lack of impressionable young girls looking for daddy's approval in the film, this one falls into the latter category.
Let me clear up any confusion that random trivia might have caused - this movie is actually pretty fucking awesome. Sure, Vinnie Jones really only has one mode and his only good film (discounting this) was Snatch - but he barely speaks throughout the entire movie. Yes, the rest of the cast outside of Brooke Shields is lame through horrid, and even Shields isn't much to write home about - but it's a horror flick! The concept, execution, and result are pretty fucking unique, and I think I'm actually on a roll with some decent horror flicks lately.
This actually managed to keep me awake, at 5AM, while hitting the leafy stuff, so that says something. Unfortunately, due to the hour and level of bakedness, my notes are of absolutely no fucking use to me here, and I was far too out of it to write the review whilst watching the movie.
Seriously, my dotor's handwriting is clearer than this.
Plot. Yeah lets start there. Bradley Cooper stars as Leon Kauffman, a New York City photographer looking for his big break. The girl of his dreams is his girlfriend, Leslie Bibb's Maya Jones, who brings us such pearls of wisdom as "you know how they talk about the good old days? There never was a good old days." Happy thought, bitch! (My quote may be a tad off).
Leon, meanwhile, decides to start photographing New York at night, hoping to get a spot in Susan Hoff's (Brooke Shields) art show - although it would appear screwing her would get the job done much quicker. Alas, our Leon only has eyes for Maya, and he soon finds himself shooting the horrors of New York - including a subway mugging where he ingeniously rescues the girl by pointing out a security camera to the thugs.
Because you know what a great deterrent those cameras really are.
So Leon is a hero - not that anyone other than slutty hot chick knows it - and has some great photos to boot. One problem - the girl in question never makes it home. When her photo shows up in the paper the next day (really? missing girls show up that quick?), Leon realizes he might have been the last person to see her alive, getting on a subway car - and takes the photos to the cops. Who immediately suspect him.
Soon Leon is obsessed with finding out what happened to the girl, and begins snooping about subway stations, finding Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) - a creepy butcher who wears a fine suit to lurk in the subways at night.
Am I giving away too much when I tell you that Mahogany is basically butchering humans on the late train? Probably not. The slaughter is brutal and brilliant, however, plenty of splatter, vicious (ouch! crotch shot!), and the butcher idea adds in quirks like the removal of teeth, nails and hair... I wound up wondering if this was based on Robert Pickton for a bit then realized it's an old Clive Barker tale.
A sample of my notes follows:
Shop. Two. WTF? Ugly kitchen.
Well, the two reference I understand. The only other comprehensible comment from me at this point is that bone racks like Leslie Bibb are not hot - but at least the sex was a little rough. Screw the sweaty romantic sex scenes; this one's a little more like A History of Violence then the lame shit we usually see in movies.
Ok back on topic - where the film falters a little is in the payoff. What we've had up til this point is a creepy serial killer horror film. Mahogany is a mute Hannibal Lecter on steroids (no, I'm not comparing Vinnie Jones to Anthony Hopkins). Then suddenly - we get this fantasy horror angle that feels somewhat out of place. I haven't read the story but I'm guessing it was there as well, knowing Barker. And it's not horrible - it just doesn't live up to the first parts of the film. The concept itself is enough - a guy butchers you on the last train of the night; you vanish forever without a trace, teeth and hair and eyes and fingernails removed, meat used for God knows what - we didn't need a supernatural angle, really.
But it's there, and I won't bitch too much. Even with it, this is a solid little flick with some bad acting but buckets of blood and a unique concept. It's obvious that Lions Gate didn't want to touch it, probably because of the title and a lack of marketing ideas - or some suit simply thought it was too nasty.
Fuck 'em. Never trust a guy in a suit. Especially when he carries a meat tenderizer.
Overall Rating: Half-Baked (3 out of 5)
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