The photographer Leon lives with his girlfriend and waitress Maya waiting for a chance to get in the photo business. When Maya contacts their friend Jurgis, he schedules a meeting for Leon with the...
The Midnight Meat Train derails itself before reaching Schlock Station. All aboard, the anti-vegetarian express! Where you’ll be greeted handsomely by a butcher and his meat tenderiser (don’t get any ideas...) before being stripped, scalped and skinned. Now that’s first class service! With a title like The Midnight Meat Train, and all the euphemisms that closely follow, stupidity should be at the forefront. And yes, it’s dumb beyond belief. So. Effing. Absurd. Yet Kitamura should’ve made the whole ordeal self-aware, embracing the schlocky B-movie ridiculousness. Instead, it turns into a tediously dull affair that had me yearning to have my body hang upside down like a carcass of meat. A photographer becomes obsessed with a butcher who he believes murdered a young model who went missing.
Be careful not to slip when you enter the carriage though, as past midnight it transitions itself into a blood bath. The brute use of gore, both practical and visualised, is what kept this train running. Eyes popping out, craniums hammered in and the smell of raw meat wafting through the dank underground air. An initially promising premise, that is until the characters start communicating and Kitamura plagued every shot by over-directing the absolute heck out of everything. A victim ready to meet their early demise? Let’s revolve the camera around the carriage ten times while swooping in through windows, skulls and any other gap present at the time. Face washing at the sink? Instead of a clean static corner shot, let’s go through the basin mirror, flip the screen somewhat and end up overlooking the room before traversing the entire apartment. It’s all for nothing.
Buhler exploited every cliché available with no substance, characterisation and constantly using explanations to explain absolutely nothing. No seriously. You’ll be blindly staring at the screen once the “twist” is over, pondering to yourself “what the heck is the purpose of life?”. A very young and eager Bradley Cooper is, well, exactly that. Lacking romantic chemistry with Bibb and solely employed to perform cunnilingus at a restaurant. That’s it. His character gets obsessed with the butchery far too quickly, as if mentally unhinged by witnessing Vinnie Jones act decently due to no dialogue. Oh no wait, I take that back. He exerts the word “welcome” and singlehandedly ruined the entire film. Way to go, Vinnie!
The unnecessary twist probably diminished any chance of surviving critical decimation. It’s incredibly stupid, much like the onscreen characters, and makes little to no sense. Why would they think breaking into his room would be a great idea? The detective, why? How is it the midnight train if it departs at two in the morning. Should’ve been titled “The Early Morning Meat Train”.
Clive Barker’s name being forcefully ensnared is the only valid reason why this has garnered a cult status. I’m sure the short story is brutal and harrowing. Kitamura’s adaptation however is far too stylistic for its own good, launching every other literary element across the platform as they wait to be hit by the oncoming train. It’s about as tense as watching the departure board change a train time to “cancelled”.
