Midnight Meat Train (2008) DVD review

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Midnight Meat Train (2008) DVD review

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This is one of those movies that comes out on DVD, then never, ever goes on sale. Well, there's no fucking way I'm paying 20$ for a DVD these days. Instead, I played the waiting game with this flick. The weeks turned to months, and the months turned into a year. I finally see it on sale for 9.99$ and it's total vindication! I had my eye on this flick stricktly due to the positive reviews that some of my respected horror critics gave it. It had a very limited theatrical release and was pushed to DVD ASAP.

This movie is based on a short story by Clive Barker. Now, Clive hasn't had a good movie based on his writings since the first Hellraiser movie (IMO). The HR sequel was pretty good too, but the series petered out and eventaully had nothing to do with anything he wrote, being handed over to Hollywood writers instead. This movie restores my faith that creating a good Clive Barker movie is still posible.

This movie is about a killer that boards a subway train at night and bludgens people to death and butchers them like cattle. An up and coming photographer is on the edge of making a career out of his art, but he keeps being pushed by the hottest art critic in town (Brook Sheilds) to keep upping the ante on his voyeristic style. This evetually leads the photographer to discover the Butcher and unravel the mystery surrounding him. The film eventually enters the realm of the fantastic, where Clive Barker's twisted stylings are fully realized. The movie left me satisfied like very few modern horror movies have. Keep in mind that this is Clive Barker, so not everything is explained in detail, instead leaving the viewer to ponder several aspects surrounding the main story.


This was a fantastic role for Vinnie Jones, who plays the Butcher. He's big and kills lots of people in gruesome ways. Everyone else did above average in their respective roles as well. Once I was able to relax due to the good acting, I focused next on special effects. CGI gore -1. However, there were plenty of practical effects as well. The gore was fast and often surprising. Overall production was easily worthy of a nationwide release. I noticed that a large number of the killings were shot from the point of view of the victims, which was pretty damn original and resulted in some cool effects.

This is the first American movie directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, who has a couple of decent Japanese horror flicks under his belt. Seriously, half way through the movie I looked at my wife and told her that there was no way the director of this movie was American. It just has an entirely differnt feel to it. Midnight Meat Train was a box office bomb, so I hope he doesn't dissappear after this.

I'm tempted to give this a 9, but as entertaining as the story was, it was still a little straight forward. Plus, the 3rd act will either make or break the movie for a lot of people. Factoring all that into my final score leaves it at an 8/10.
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