The Midnight Meat Train

Dir: Ryuhei Kitamura

2008

**

I wasn’t sure what convinced me to watch The Midnight Meat Train. While I will give any film a try, it wasn’t something that I immediately thought I’d enjoy but there was something about it that intrigued me. Of course fifteen minutes in I realised the connection – it was based on one of Cliver barker’s Books of Blood stories, a collection of horror shorts I adored reading in the late 1980s and had almost forgotten about. It all came flooding back and I remember at the time (I believe it was 1989, on a Spanish beach on the Costa Brava) that a film adaptation of the stories would be amazing. Twenty years later (actually, thirty years later, as it has taken me ten years to get round to watching it), I feel somewhat cheated. I remember liking Pig Blood Blues and In the Hills, the Cities far more than The Midnight Meat Train but it still had one hell of an ending. It was a moment in my adolescence where I discovered great horror and horror story telling. Why on earth the makers of Ryuhei Kitamura’s adaptation thought that casting Vinnie Jones as Mahogany was a good move is anyone’s guess, surely that was a late 90s mistake film makers made? Gone in 60 Seconds should have been the last of Jones’ Hollywood affair and if that wasn’t enough, then X-Men: The Last Stand should have underlined as much. X-Men: The Last Stand was released two years before The Midnight Meat Train, so maybe contracts were already signed, but any credibility the film had of being even the slightest bit scary, was pissed up the wall when Jones was cast as the story’s villain. The role didn’t need a hard man, it needed a terrifying one. The story follows a man called Leon (a relatively fresh-faced Bradley Cooper), a photographer who wants to capture unique, gritty shots of the city and the people who live in it. He is crushed when, instead of giving him his big break, gallery owner Susan (Brooke Shields) instead criticizes him for not taking enough risks. Emboldened, he heads into the city's subway system at night, where he takes pictures of an impending sexual assault before eventually saving the woman. The next day, he discovers that the woman he saved has gone missing. Intrigued by the mystery, he investigates reports of similar disappearances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany (Vinnie Jones), who he suspects has been killing subway passengers for the past three years. Leon presents his photos to the police, but Detective Hadley (Barbara Eve Harris) disbelieves him and, instead, casts suspicion on his motives. Leon's involvement quickly turns into a dark obsession, upsetting his waitress girlfriend Maya (Leslie Bibb), who is as disbelieving of his story as the police. After stalking Mahogany and barely escaping, Leon follows Mahogany onto the last subway train of the night, only to witness a bloodbath. The butcher kills several passengers and hangs their bodies on meat hooks. After a brief scuffle with Mahogany, Leon passes out on the train's floor. He awakes the next morning in a slaughterhouse with strange markings carved into his chest. A concerned Maya and her friend Jurgis (Roger Bart) examine Leon's photos of Mahogany, leading them to the killer's apartment. After breaking into the butcher's home, Jurgis is captured, though Maya escapes with timetables that record over 100 years of murders on the subway. Maya goes to the police but finds Hadley as skeptical of her story as Leon's. When Hadley presses Maya to return the timetables, Maya demands answers. At gunpoint, Hadley directs Maya to take the midnight train to find Jurgis. Leon, unaware of Maya's involvement, heads to a hidden subway entrance in the slaughterhouse, arming himself with several slaughterhouse knives and wearing a butcher's apron. Leon boards the train as Mahogany has completed his nightly massacre and has cornered Maya. Leon attacks the murderer with a knife, and the two fight in between the swinging human flesh. Human body parts are ripped, thrown, and used as weapons. Jurgis, hung from a meat hook, dies when he is gutted. Finally, Leon throws Mahogany out of the train. The train reaches its final stop, a cavernous abandoned station filled with skulls and decomposing bodies. The conductor steps into the car, advising Leon and Maya to "please step away from the meat." The true purpose of the abandoned station is revealed, as reptilian creatures enter the car and consume the bodies of the murdered passengers. Leon and Maya flee into the cavern. Mahogany, battered and bleeding, returns and fights to the death with Leon. After Leon stabs a broken femur through Mahogany's throat, Mahogany grins in his dying throes, saying only, "Welcome" The conductor appears and tells Leon the creatures have lived beneath the city since long before the subway was constructed, and the butcher's job is to feed them each night to keep them from attacking subway riders during the day. He picks up Leon, and with the same supernatural strength as the deceased butcher, rips out Leon's tongue, throwing him to the ground and eating it. The conductor brings Leon's attention to Maya, who has been knocked unconscious and is lying on a pile of bones. The conductor forces Leon to watch as he cuts Maya's chest open to remove her heart. When he is done, he tells Leon that, having killed the butcher, Leon must take his place. Finally, Detective Hadley hands the train schedule to the new butcher, who wears a ring with the symbol of the group that feeds the creatures. The killer walks onto the midnight train and turns his head to reveal himself as Leon. It is far scarier and clever-sounding in the book than it is in the film. Vinnie Jones is ridiculously miscast, Bradley Cooper and Leslie Bibb are both pretty good but it was only Ted Raimi’s small role that actually excited me. I do wonder what Patrick Tatopoulos’ version would have looked like had he not left the project, I would have chosen Ryuhei Kitamura if I had the choice of the two but this is by far his weakest film. I feel the horror and mystery were overshadowed by the splatter – which was far too prevalent. Sure, this was a story from the Book of Blood but it was always the suspense and thrill that made it a page turner, not the graphic description of each killing. Clive Barker is a master of horror with a huge fan following, so I find it strange how no one seems to be able to adapt his work appropriately, when I would bet there were hundreds of good directors who would jump at the chance – the author himself being one of them.