The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
Review by Noel
Ain’t that a bitch? The latest installment of the tired Saw series makes $30 million dollars in its opening weekend while the far superior The Midnight Meat Train (I hadn’t realized there was a ‘The’ in the title until I saw it a second time) languishes in dollar theaters and barely recoups its costs. You wonder why Lionsgate Studios defecates a new installment of this weary, and wearying, series every Halloween like it was hose-fed Metamucil and gallons of Slim-fast at or around October 20th while it keeps actual good films away from the people that want to see them. Having stated that, I’m glad I saw this in a decent theater with a sparse but loyal number of fans (my computer at home), paying my ticket (seeing it free thanks to Fearnet), and supporting the theater by buying its inexpensively priced concessions (the In-N-Out a block away from my house). Nothing conveys the full movie-going experience like watching it full stereo sound (I need new headphones) with dedicated horror lovers (my cat Quentin as my wife was asleep).
Take a mental picture of this young man about town, Leon Kauffman (Bradley Cooper). He’s a photographer. He’s got the standard loyal, but somewhat exasperated, girlfriend (Leslie Bibb) and a best friend Jurgis (Hostel 2′s [review] Roger Bart, trying to keep his penis intact-o this time). He’s on the cusp of breaking out into the big time, but he needs a little networking help. He needs important people to see his work. Fortunately (and not at all coincidentally), Jurgis knows super-powerful art curator Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields, in fine, bitchy form). Susan decides to take a look at Leon’s work. Susan says that Leon needs to be a bit more edgy, needs to capture the heart of the city and brushes him off within three minutes.
Leon is pouty but nevertheless determined. He goes off into the New York nightlife, camera at the ready, armed to take in what Gotham has to give him after hours…He follows a gang of toughs into the subway and stops them from raping, killing, and maybe dining on a beautiful model (and probably not in that order), clicking away all the while. But little does Leon know that the model has just boarded a train…and she won’t get out of it alive. Because this particular train has a perpetual passenger named Mahogany (the silent but bluntly deadly Vinnie Jones) the Butcher. He’s appropriately named because he’s both works as a butcher…and butcher’s people on the train.
Waking up the next morning, Leon wakes up and sees the newspaper. On the front page is news about the model he saved. Turns out she’s missing…and he goes to the police to confess what he saw, giving them the pics and spills everything that happened the previous night. The police dismiss him as well, but it looks like he’s a bit under suspicion. But a light’s been switched on in little Leon’s noggin. He has to find out what happened. He has to get his pictures. In a plot contrivance that’s not really worth fretting about (a telltale ring), Leon happens to follow Mahogany on the train, resolute to find out what happened to the model. Night after obsessive dark night, Leon finds out more than he wants to, and as the blood, guts, and red meat pile up, Leon realizes that it may be too late to derail this train on its way to…wherever it’s heading (it’s reveal is one of the very best parts of the movie).
What works about The Midnight Meat Train:
1.) Mahogany and the Forrest Gump reference. You wait a beat, and then you laugh your ass off.
2.) I collect spores, molds and fungus- I actually almost huffed my animal-style fries all over my floor, I mean all over the theater floor, when Mahogany took off his shirt. Why is he keeping those things in jars?
3.) Director Ryuhei Kitomura and DP Jonathan Sela stage beautiful shots of gore in and around the train (nice pullback head shot). Yes, they do call attention to itself, but they don’t detract from the spine of the story as most of these attempts at ‘art’ in a horror movie do. You almost…want to take a picture of it.
4.) You wish Brooke Shields’ megabitch was onscreen more, because Susan is way more interesting to watch than pretty much any other character on the screen (human, anyway).
5.) Ted Raimi (Sam’s brother) and his eye’s expedient exit.
6.) The Maze ‘o’ Meat chase with Mahogany and Leon. Think Liam Neeson and Christian Bale with the wall of ninjas in Batman Begins except this time replace the ninjas with huge slabs of beef.
7.) The Conductor (“Please, step away from the Meat”).
8.) Leslie Bibb brings more depth than you’d ever expect from the thinly written girlfriend character.
9.) The final 10 minutes of Meat elevate this movie from good-to-middling to a very good horror film. The final 10 are better than anything you’ve seen in Saw V (review)…or Saw IV (review).
What doesn’t work:
1.) As a character, Leon isn’t very interesting to watch. You want to pay attention to every character around except him. It’s like watching a bland distracted tour guide. You wonder what might have been done had a more charismatic actor than Bradley Cooper played the lead.
2.) A convenient, almost casual illegal entry into a meat packing plant that will have even the most forgiving viewer wondering if it’s that easy to walk into a building like that and have nobody notice that HE DOESN’T WORK THERE. I like how there happen to be clothes and a hard hat that fit him to a T.
3.) A overt attempt at comedy/fake scare involving kids and candy will be met with the excruciating silence of nobody laughing and maybe a couple of people groaning.
4.) More than a couple of time the movie veers into Idiot Plot, but none so obvious as when two supporting characters/amateur private dicks try to find Mahogany ill prepared. Very. Ill. Prepared (“At least we know what we’re doing is insane”). A poor and obvious storytelling shortcut. There’s no logical reason these characters do what they’re doing except that the movie wouldn’t move forward without it and screenwriter Jeff Buhler (from the short by Clive Barker) couldn’t think of anything more plausible or less obtuse.
5.) Leon decked out like one of the Knights that say “Knee!”
The release continually derailed, The Midnight Meat Train is destined to become the Trick ‘r’ Treat of ’08 (when the hell is that movie coming out BTW?). But if and when you do get the chance to view it don’t hesitate, because even though it’s not perfect, it’s one of the better horror movies of the year, and only time (2 months) will tell if it’s one of the best. You’ve wanted to, but couldn’t. But when you can, hop on and take a ride on this meat… …train, that is
Available from Amazon
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