Midnight Meat Train review

There was a time when I was much, much younger and the only books on my shelf were either written by Stephen King or Clive Barker. The King books were an inevitability, seeing how every young horror fan at birth already owns at least a myriad or two of his novels, but the Barker books were a later discovery that helped guide my imagination down a much darker path, where even the likes of King never dared to tread.

I got my hands on the BOOKS OF BLOOD in my teens and was enthralled by the atrocities contained within. One of the most memorable stories was THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN, a tale of urban decay and the horrors encountered in the labyrinthine tunnels of the New York City underground subway system. My enjoyment of the story multiplied when I picked up TAPPING THE VEIN: Book Three, the comic adaptation by Eclipse Books drawn by Denys Cowan and Michael Davis. Their depiction of Mahogany, the butcher, was perfectly in tune with how I had imagined him and the entire comic fit perfectly into Barker’s universe.

Cut to eighteen years later.

Lion’s Gate Entertainment has taken Barker’s story and adapted it to the big screen. I had heard a lot about how he had been trying to get this made for years and the filming had finally commenced last year and he was really happy with the outcome. But then some inner workings at Lion’s Gate caused tons of changes in release dates, possibly settling on a direct to DVD release, and Barker was pissed. Who wouldn’t be? I was all up in arms when I heard about the whole thing and it really started to get me more and more excited about the movie.

Then I managed to get myself into a press screening last week and I must say that I was completely and utterly disappointed by the film. Director Ryuhei (Versus, Azumi) Kitamura’s envisioning of Barker’s story contains nothing of what made the original such a short masterpiece of the macabre. The blue/grey colour scheme gives the film a clinical look that worked for Nacho Cerda’s AFTERMATH but doesn’t really feel right here. It comes off as too overly saturated and mechanical in what should be a grim and dirty world. Every moment of gore is over the top, which is alright, but it’s all CGI, which is garbage. We have Vinnie Jones as our Mahogany, possibly one of the worst casting choices ever, in a performance that delivers neither fear nor dread nor sympathy, three elements which heavily describe Mahogany in the short story. Jones’ idea of being menacing is to give the stink eye to the camera pretty much every time he is in frame. That may work in euro-action fare but I think horror fans demand more from their psycho killers.

The film version follows Leon Kauffman, played by Bradley Cooper (Wedding Crashers, Failure to Launch), a photographer trying to capture the heart of the city. According to Brooke Shields his work is “arresting but empty.” This leads him to take some pictures of a group of black teens as they attempt to rape a Japanese girl on a subway platform. Shields responds to these photos with a “Whoa!”, a term which she hasn’t used since high school. This is obviously an art world big shot.

The Japanese girl ends up a missing person and Kauffman clues in to what is going down on the subway. He starts to see Vinnie Jones everywhere and decides to inconspicuously follow him around. And by inconspicuously I mean completely out in the open for everyone to see. Kauffman goes to the cops but no one seems to care. Maybe because the cop is wearing a necklace charm exactly like the ring on Jones’ finger. Seems like everyone is involved.

Along the way, Kauffman’s girliefriend Maya, played by Jessica Lange doppelganger Leslie Bibb (Wristcutters, Trick ‘R Treat), gets weirded out by his obsession and tries to get help for him but only manages to get herself involved and captured by the bad guy. It keeps going on and on and on and on. As stupid as the movie gets, an all time low is when Kauffman, who starts off vegetarian, licks the meat juice off of his buddies plate, with a response of “What? Order me a steak”. I guess following a guy who works at a meat packing plant can turn you back onto the meat. He also seemingly rapes his girlie after asking her to marry him. Maybe that’s the all time low. Hmm. Tough choice. It pretty much was all an all time low for everyone involved. Dare I say moreso than TRANSMUTATIONS and/or RAWHEAD REX. YES I DARE SAY IT!!! I would rather sit down and rewatch movies that Barker himself has disavowed then have to sit through this one again.

Fans of Kitamura’s early films will be bored and disappointed that the director really didn’t bring along his bag of tricks to America. Fans of Barker’s will be completely appalled by the fact that one of his greatest short stories has been hacked and slashed by Hollywood. Who knows what we can expect from the upcoming HELLRAISER remake? Well, at least I know it can’t get any worse.

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