The Midnight Meat Train is a horror movie based on Clive Barker's 1984 short story of the same name. It was produced by Lakeshore Entertainment, Lionsgate, Midnight Picture Show, and GreeneStreet Films and distributed by Lionsgate and Lakeshore Entertainment. The Midnight Meat Train was written by Jeff Buhler and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura.
The story is Leon is a photographer who wants to capture the darker shots of the city, and after not getting a break because a gallery owner feels as though he doesn't take enough risks, Leon heads to the subway system. He soon learns of a supposed butcher who's been killing passengers for quite sometime. Leon soon discovers more than what he bargained for.
Why It's Underrated
While the movie got quite a bit of attention, as the years when on it just faded away and would later go underneath people's radar, mine included. I didn't know the movie existed until I saw a commercial for it on SyFy, and I didn't bother watching it. Mistake on my part.
My Thoughts
The first thing I want to get out of the away are the special effects. When I read reviews for this, I was expecting to be taken out of the experience because so many people complained about the CGI. Now yes, there were scenes where it's clearly CGI, but there not as frequent as those reviews made them out to be. Most of the time the effects are well crafted and very much practical. Which makes me wonder what version of the movie did these people see?
One bit of praise goes to Ryuhei Kitamura's directing. I'll admit, I never heard of this guy until I saw this movie, and I gotta say, his style of directing is really good. Nice visuals, even if those visuals are disturbing. But when adapting a Clive Barker story, you need somebody who can make images truly scary, instead of something bland, and Kitamura did just that.
Since this is a horror movie, how does the violence hold up? Well...it's very gruesome. The kills hold nothing back, when someone's head is gonna get messed up, you can count on blood just going everywhere. But what makes it truly special is what a lot of the great horror flicks do, and that's not have an over reliance on it. Yeah despite what some of the marketing was saying, even though the gore is there and plays a part, it's not played as yet another typical slasher movie.
Which now brings me to the performances. Our main stars, those being Bradley Cooper and Vinnie Jones, both do a tremendous job. What really made their acting great was what they could say just with facial expressions alone, especially in Vinnie's case considering his character (The Butcher) doesn't say anything until the final act.
The last thing I'll write about is the story. While you do get focus on The Butcher, there's actually more to the story than that. If anything, the story mainly focuses on morbid curiosity and how that leads down a dangerous road. If our main character didn't wind up having a dark obsession and need to want to find out more about The Butcher, things might not have turned out so horribly by the end. It honestly was the best part of the movie for me. However, there is a minor flaw. There's a big twist in the story that got a mixed reactions at best, and I can understand why. While the movie does state there's more to The Butcher than meets the eye, the movie didn't dive too deep about that. I think if more breadcrumbs were spread, just enough not to make people feel like the movie was treating them like morons, but enough to make people want to rewatch and search for more clues, then maybe the twist would've been better received.
While The Midnight Meat Train isn't flawless, it was still an enjoyable movie to watch. I think if you get the chance, you should give this one a watch. Especially since this is the Halloween season.
My final rating is, Good.
That's all for now. Come back on Saturday, Oct 28th, for my review of, Five Nights at Freddy's. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day.
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