Being a true lover of the long lost (at least in America) art of cinema, I take something away from any film or movie I watch.
Good or bad, I always have an opinion, so I will be randomly bombarding you with my thoughts on these films as I feel inclined.
There will be no rhyme or reason, it could be a new release or it could be a film that is fifty or sixty years old, completely random.
This is the first of said entries, a review of The Midnight Meat Train.
The Midnight Meat Train (2008)
From the wonderfully horrific mind of Clive Barker (Hell raiser, Candy man, Lord of illusions) comes another in a long line of adaptations of his works, The Midnight Meat Train. Though he had virtually nothing to do with the adaptation to the screen in this project, his base themes and trademark character types remain intact.
Leon, played by Bradley Cooper, is a young photographer searching for his artistic breakthrough while he chases down accidents to get newsworthy photos so he can pay the bills in the meantime.
He is strongly supported by his girlfriend Maya (played by Leslie Bibb) who finally finds him a way in by getting him a meeting with a well respected art dealer .
He brings what he believes to be his best work to the art dealer, played surprisingly well by Brooke Shields.
She promptly tells him he needs to be more brave in seeking out the real dangerous elements of the city, causing Leon to head out in the middle of the night in pursuit of something profound.
He follows a group of unsavory looking fellows into the subway and catches them in the midst of a mugging, his steady handed shooting provides him his big breakthrough. He roundaboutly saves the girl in trouble and she makes her way onto her intended train.
The next day he discovers the girl to have gone missing, which leads him to a inevitable trail back to that train from the night before. This is where his eye is drawn to Mahogany (Played strongly by Vinnie Jones), an ominous man who trolls the late night streets in a suit.
Eventually the correlation is made between the train, the girl and Mahogany and Leon begins his own personal investigation. He soon discovers a sinister nightly ritual taking place and is dragged in over his head into a world he nor us fully understand.
Direct by Ryuhei Kitamura and written for the screen by Jeff Buhler, this adaptation of one of Barker’s more American themed horror shots stories is certainly not without it’s share of flaws and implausibilities.
The gore and viscera at times are a bit poor looking and even for a Barker story, seem a bit excessive at points. The story is filled with minor head scratching character motivations and the parts of the story left to the screenwriter show that he holds no measure to Mr. Barker’s own capabilities, even as a screenwriter.
All that said, I still walked away from this film satisfied due to the dark, sadomasochistic themes of the story and the very “lovecraftian” nature of the story.
The trademark themes from the true master of horror, that of the inexplicable evil causing an eventual descent into madness never fails to work for me, and this is no different here. Cooper did a decent job in his role, but his character was too poorly churned, his turns happened to swiftly to be believable. Bibb’s character is fairly weak and largely maddening in her mindless support through her fiancée’s descent into this dark realm that seem to consume him.
Vinnie Jones, far and away does the best job with his character, probably because it’s a completely silent role, but still he did a damn fine job and was quite chilling in his performance.
In the end this film has it’s share of problems, that point to it needing to be in the hands of a better director and/or screenwriter. This film goer wonder how a team like Alexandre Aja (High tension) and Andrew Kevin Walker (seven) would have fared on this project, but alas we will never know.
This film has it’s problems, but in the end it’s still a bloody good time for most horror fans and a entails a pretty solid payoff in the end, in my opinion.
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