R0BTRAIN's Bad Ass Cinema: The Midnight Meat Train

Features, Top Story

October is in full swing, and with it comes Horror Movie Madness at the Sutton household. Slasher movies, monster movies, splatter fests, classic Horror, and Giallo flicks are all getting play this Halloween season, and frankly I couldn’t be happier. It’s a nonstop bloodbath on my DVD and Blu-Ray players, and for the only time of the year, Chuck Norris has nothing to do with it. The chronicles of Jason Voorhees and Michael Myers are getting constant plays at the moment, and teenage victims are dying by the dozens.

Also though, I got to check out what I think will end up the best Horror film of 2008 on Friday night. At a midnight show with about twelve people in attendance I got to see a movie which got a real shaft from its distributor, but a movie I think that’s going to have a real life once Horror movie audiences discover it on DVD. That film is the American debut of Japanese Cult sensation Ryuhei Kitamura, and his movie is The Midnight Meat Train. I’ve written up Kitamura in the past in this column talking about two of his major Japanese features, his ultra-low budget, ultra-awesome-Zombie-Samurai-Yakuza Movie Versus, and one of the best Manga to Live Action Motion Pictures ever made, Azumi. I’ve also seen Godzilla: Final Wars, which is a movie with a lot of problems, but also with a lot of energy, which is something that Kitamura always manages to bring to his projects.

This would especially go for The Midnight Meat Train, which is a film that should have been his ultra-stylistic breakout film for American audiences. Unfortunately, distributor Lionsgate, who like New Line Cinema in the 80‘s and Dimension films a decade later, made its reputation mostly on the backs of Horror films such as the Saw series and to a lesser degree the Hostel films, for some reason decided to shun this movie. It’s baffling that a studio who gave us The Descent which in my opinion may just be the Horror film of the decade, would totally relegate such a stylish, over the top picture to 106 “Dollar Theaters” on its initial release is completely beyond me.

Again, shame on you Lionsgate. You’re about to make another killing at the box office this October with yet another Saw sequel, but how about some love for a film maker that goes out of his way to bring some real style to this violence. You could have just ushered in the next big Horror movie director, but instead you’ve told him that you don’t have as much respect for his movies as you do the bankable Saw movie factory.

I left the theater the other night not disgusted by horrible violence I witnessed, but by the tons of fans who’ll never get the same experience.
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The Midnight Meat Train Starring Bradley Cooper Leslie Bibb Brooke Shields, Roger Bart, Vinnie Jones. Directed by Ryuhei Kitamura

Now, before I get started, I’d like to mention that despite its title, this is in no way an adult film, though I’m sure there has probably been one with this title or something similar made before. What this movie is, is a brutal, brutal movie that gorehounds will undoubtedly embrace, but one that doesn’t feature the elongated torture of a Saw film. You see, while I’ve actually seen all the Saw films and I feel like there’s probably a bit too much hype surrounding them, I can also see why so many people still don’t like to watch them. I mean, they’re sick. They’re really, really sick.

Now, the problem with the movies isn’t necessarily the gore, because I’m basically fine with gore, but I think to some degree its about how the movies deal with the gore. Gore is one thing, but where the Saw films and they’re ilk tend to get into trouble is how they decide to elongate the experience. Unlike, say, the Slasher films of the 1980’s, who tended to have big body counts, but made their kills brutal but very quick, this new wave of Horror makes their victims’ torture an experience that lasts and lasts. This is where the line is really drawn with many Horror fans.

I didn’t ever really feel that way with Midnight Meat Train at all. Yes, the movie is absolutely horrific and I would not recommend it to those who are the least bit squeamish or if you like seeing Ted Raimi last more than five minutes in the movies he appears in. In fact if you don’t like watching Ted Raimi die at all on screen, or more specifically by having his eyes pop out by getting hit in the head with a Meat Tenderizer, then I would avoid the movie at all costs. Me personally, I’m indifferent to watching Raimi die onscreen or not. I mean, I like Raimi and all, he’s a pretty funny guy, but whether he dies or not on screen has no bearing in whether I’ll catch a flick. Ok, now that that’s out of the way.

As I was saying the movie is horribly graphic, but at the same time, I never felt kind of dirty like I do when I’m watching a Saw flick (Note: this is not an indictment on Saw or its fans), and the movie is so stylish instead I think this movie managed to tap into the sort of exhilarating type of experience you’d get by watching the type of batsh!t crazy Cult Horror that you mostly don’t get to see these days, such as an Evil Dead 2 or Dario Argento‘s Phenomena or maybe even Phantasm. Kitamura just simply goes absolutely for broke here with his very signature style that I hope will get to have more and more exposure as he gets to do more movies.
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Now, while Kitamura is a Japanese director, don’t fear that he’s just another J-Horror clone. While I give credit where it’s due to creators like Hideo Nakata and Takashi Shimizu, Kitamura’s films stray away from the usual “pasty girl with long hair” villains that are the norm within the genre. Taking his queues from 80’s Cult directors like Sam Raimi, his movies tend to be kinetic pictures with action infused into them as much as horror. All the swooping cameras and crazy angles are all still here, and to be honest I haven’t seen something quite this stylish in some time.

I’d have to go back to Dario Argento’s Trauma to remember the last time I saw the point of view from a severed head, and with the help of special effects Kitamura gets to do things like have that point of view blink and then change angles to reveal the blinking face. Another shot has the point of view of a victim hanging upside down, opening their eyes just in time to see their throat get slit, and then looking down to see their own reflection in a pool of their own blood. It’s that type of visual flourish that I used to love from film makers like Dario Argento and Don Coscarelli, and that Kitamura is using now. He’s just the next in a long line of independent Horror directors that eventually try to find their foothold, and I hope that’s what’s happening now.

I think the director even compares well with Neil Marshall, who’s the other Horror film maker I’ve got my eye on at the moment. With Descent and Dog Soldiers under his belt, Marshall’s doing some terrific genre work at the moment. In the end though, I’d give the edge to Kitamura as far as American debuts go. Comparatively with Doomsday, which I liked but didn’t really love, Meat Train comes out on top.

One of the big problems with Doomsday was that despite having Malcolm McDowell in the cast, the movie really didn’t have a strong enough villain. With this film that isn’t a problem. Vinnie Jones could melt faces with how scary he is in this picture, using all body language and ferocity as Mahogany, the man who rides the subways late at night in search of victims. Jones is just scary as hell, using his Charles Bronson-style “good looks” to be able to drain as much blood out of you with a look as much he can with his meat tenderizer.
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Jones is that rare screen performer that can really back up just how bad ass he is on screen, and while I think his collaborations with Guy Ritchie are still his best work, he hasn’t gotten a role this good in a while. He’s up to the task too, even able to elicit an odd sympathy at times. Workmanlike is hardly ever a good way to describe a performance, but there is a sort of blue collar aspect to what he’s doing here, killing these people. It’s just what he does, and that comes across on screen.

Also very good is Bradley Cooper as Leon Kauffman, the photographer who is constantly trying to catch Mahogany in the act, and is becoming increasingly obsessive about doing it. It would be easy to make this role unlikable, as Kauffman starts to forsake friends and even his fiancé for his obsession, but I think Cooper keeps us on the right side of the character. It helps that he completely commits to the role in the end, and we buy all the things that end up happening to him. Fortunately, he never plays the role over the top, so even as horrible things start to go down, its still easy to identify with him.
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The whole thing really just goes back to Kitamura though. While the movie is based on a short story by Clive Barker, and you can tell it’s a Clive Barker story, there’s still so much of the Kitamura here that you never question it’s his movie. This is an amazingly horrific studio debut for the director, and I hope this gets a big enough cult following that he gets another project together really soon. While Lionsgate really screwed the pooch this time, perhaps clearer heads will prevail his next time out.

Robert Sutton feels the most at home when he's watching some movie scumbag getting blown up, punched in the face, or kung fu'd to death, especially in that order. He's a founding writer for the movies section of Insidepulse.com, featured in his weekly column R0BTRAIN's Badass Cinema as well as a frequent reviewer of DVDs and Blu-rays. Also, he's a proud Sony fanboy, loves everything Star Wars and Superman related and hopes to someday be taken seriously by his friends and family.