The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

A photographer's obsessive pursuit of dark subject matter leads him into the path of a serial killer who stalks late night commuters, ultimately butchering them in the most gruesome ways imaginable.

Director:

Ryûhei Kitamura

Writers:

Jeff Buhler (screenplay), Clive Barker (short story "The Midnight Meat Train")

Stars:

Vinnie Jones, Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb

2 wins & 6 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Bradley Cooper	...	Leon
Leslie Bibb	...	Maya
Brooke Shields	...	Susan Hoff
Vinnie Jones	...	Mahogany
Roger Bart	...	Jurgis
Tony Curran	...	Driver
Barbara Eve Harris	...	Detective Lynn Hadley
Peter Jacobson	...	Otto
Stephanie Mace	...	Leigh Cooper
Ted Raimi	...	Randle Cooper
Nori Satô	...	Erika Sakaki (as NorA)
Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson	...	Guardian Angel
Dan Callahan	...	Troy Taleveski
Donnie Smith	...	Station Cop
Earl Carroll	...	Jack Franks

Storyline

The photographer Leon lives with his girlfriend and waitress Maya waiting for a chance to get in the photo business. When Maya contacts their friend Jurgis, he schedules a meeting for Leon with the successful owner of arts gallery Susan Hoff; she analyzes Leon's work and asks him to improve the quality of his photos. During the night, the upset Leon decides to wander on the streets taking pictures with his camera, and he follows three punks down to the subway station; when the gang attacks a young woman, Leon defends her and the guys move on. On the next morning, Leon discovers that the woman is missing. He goes to the police station, but Detective Lynn Hadley does not give much attention to him and discredits his statement. Leon becomes obsessed to find what happened with the stranger and he watches the subway station. When he sees the elegant butcher Mahogany in the train, Leon believes he might be a murderer and stalks him everywhere, in the beginning of his journey to the darkness.

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Plot Keywords:

subway | photographer | butcher | girlfriend | art gallery | 

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Taglines:

The most terrifying ride you'll ever take

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Genres:

Horror | Mystery

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for sequences of strong bloody gruesome violence, grisly images involving nudity, sexual content and language

Details

Official Sites:

Lionsgate [United States]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

29 July 2009 (France)

Also Known As:

Clive Barker's Midnight Meat Train

Filming Locations:

Burbank, California, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$15,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$34,394 (USA) (1 August 2008)

Gross:

$73,548 (USA) (8 August 2008)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Lakeshore Entertainment, Lions Gate Films, Midnight Picture Show

Technical Specs

Runtime:

98 min 103 min (unrated)

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Lionsgate had recently hired exec Joe Drake when the film was completing production. Drake, for some unknown reason, greatly disliked the film and decided to give it a limited theatrical run in budget cinemas.

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Goofs

After Leon has his tongue ripped off, you can see the tongue intact in his mouth.

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Quotes

[passing by Mahogany, who is sitting in the train with his bag on his knees]
Guardian Angel: Life is like a box of chocolates!

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Connections

References Forrest Gump (1994)

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Soundtracks

Moving Toward Something
Written by Jaime Wyatt and Gregory Butler (as Gregory C Butler)
Performed by Wyatt Butler
Courtesy of Lakeshore Records

User Reviews

One of the best adaptations of Clive Barker's stories

Clive Barker's more sanguinary inclinations are paid tribute here through a hulking golem, a malevolent meat merchant in his dapper best, named Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) who smashes, eviscerates and cleaves through unsuspecting commuters on the last train home. Adapted from Barker's seminal anthology, "Books of Blood", the similarly named "The Midnight Meat Train" is more than just an opportunity for some sophomoric snickering over its title but one of Barker's most revered short stories about a supernatural serial killer that ekes out fascination, fear and obsession from a lone photographer, Leon Kaufman (Bradley Cooper) stumbling upon the butcher's late night deliveries.

Director Ryuhei Kitamura (of "Versus" and "Azumi" fame) offers up one of the year's most brutally alluring gore fests in his American debut. With the gritty and detailed hard-edge of early 70s horror films (why, hello there Lucio Fulci!), his flair for CGI augmented visuals and the intense seduction of experimental camera-work in a cinematic environment so increasingly sanitised of actual visceral terror, Kitamura refreshes the genre's ability to unsettle and provoke audiences and jolt jaded horror enthusiasts out of their PG-13 apathy.

Kitamura works with a modest but shrewd sense of space in the decaying subway, the claustrophobic train and the creeping gloom of the city. There's a certain simpatico between Barker's distinctive tone and Kitamura's balls-to-the-wall film-making that compliments each other to the benefit of the film's atmospheric resilience. The unvarnished horrors cooked down deep in the gallows of the tunnels, plunged into darkness form the basis of Kaufman's terrible fixation on the disappearing passengers and that indescribably malicious man who stalks the shadows. Mahogany is the film's myth, the legend of The Butcher. Prepossessing the exactitude of traits essential to the character, Jones has the nasty glint in the eye, the mysterious swagger of indestructibility and the imperative of consuming evil, as well as having the benefit of looking like the quiet guy in the corner of the bar who could take out an entire gang of hoodlums without spilling his drink.

Kitamura's modulation of the material's emotional stakes and his slow-burn style of ratcheting up tension gives the story further layers to plunge into, not withstanding Cooper's unlikely presence as the film's corruptible protagonist. Jeff Buhler's screenplay from Barker's 25-year-old story is uneven at times but keeps an atmospheric dread of hopelessness. Supporting characters include Kaufman's wife (Leslie Bibb), a counterpoint to the man's wavering sanity and a threadbare characterisation of his good-humoured pal Jurgis (Roger Bart) who stands to represent Kaufman's humanity. But even if these emotional contrasts don't work, the film itself is a tidy and effective meta-slasher that resonates beyond corporeal carnage. Kitamura's subtextual ingenuity is shown through macabre imagery of animal carcasses hanging off meat hooks as Mahogany tenderises, disembowels and stores his victims just like the morsels of flesh they are.

Clive Barker's fantastical and mad blend of visceral shocks and profoundly unsettling explorations of worlds coexisting and buried deep within the one we think we understand has become an important component of our contemporary literary and filmic universes. While "The Midnight Meat Train" never hits the spasms of metaphysical despairs in "Hellraiser" or the diabolical mind-warps of "Candyman", this is forthright horror – simple, powerful and unadulterated.