Director: Ryûhei Kitamura
Written by: Jeff Buhler (screenplay), Clive Barker (short story)
Cast: Bradley Cooper, Vinnie Jones, Leslie Bibb, Brooke Shields

Year / Country: 2008, USA
Running Time: 98 mins.

A big city is like a human body. The central train station is like the heart, the subway tunnels are the arteries and the trains themselves are blood cells. But just like a human body, a city can carry a disease through its blood vessels; a cancer or a deadly virus.

A struggling photographer (Cooper) wants to capture the real city as it has never been done before. He starts having horrible visions of a butcher (Jones), who slays people on the midnight subway. To impress an influential photo guru, a ridiculous role by Brooke Shields, he starts making more dangerous photos, including those of the butcher himself.

Movies based on Clive Barker novels are not guaranteed to be great films. In fact, only the original Hellraiser can be called great. The rest range from mediocre to poor. The Midnight Meat Train does a better job than most. Although it never becomes scary, it does have a sense of dread, something all novels by Barker definitely possess.

The signature of director Kitamura is very visible. The cleverly edited slayings are typical of Japanese horrors and make The Midnight Meat Train a purely graphical experience. It is hard to take it seriously; the hero jumps on a riding train in one scene. The cast is also not exactly grade A. Shields was already mentioned, Jones fits his role like a glove, but is not scary at all. Then there is the boring Cooper and his girlfriend Bibb, who is not the most convincing actress.

Apart from the images, what makes The Midnight Meat Train a worthy ride to take is where the train eventually comes to a halt. There is actually an ending to this tale that is Hellraiserishly fantastic. Better to watch it long after dinner though.

Rating:

Biography: Ryûhei Kitamura (1969, Osaka) briefly studied film making in Australia. The first ten years he spent in Japan making horror, action and monster movies, all starring Tak Sakaguchi. Well-known successes include Azumi and Versus. In 2008 he made his American debut with The Midnight Meat Train.

Filmography: Heat After Dark (1996), Down to Hell (1997), Versus (2000), Jam Films (2002, segment ‘The Messenger – Requiem for the Dead’), Sukai hai (2003, TV episodes), Azumi (2003), The Messenger (2003, short), Sakurajima (2004, doc), LoveDeath (2006), Romance Novel (2006, TV), The Midnight Meat Train (2008), Baton (2009)1