SYNOPSICS
The Midnight Meat Train (2008) is a English movie. Ryûhei Kitamura has directed this movie. Vinnie Jones,Bradley Cooper,Leslie Bibb,Brooke Shields are the starring of this movie. It was released in 2008. The Midnight Meat Train (2008) is considered one of the best Horror,Mystery,Thriller movie in India and around the world.
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 successful owner of arts gallery Susan Hoff; she analyzes Leon's work and asks him to improve the quality of his photos. During the night, the upset Leon decides to wander on the streets taking pictures with his camera, and he follows three punks down to the subway station; when the gang attacks a young woman, Leon defends her and the guys move on. On the next morning, Leon discovers that the woman is missing. He goes to the police station, but Detective Lynn Hadley does not give much attention to him and discredits his statement. Leon becomes obsessed to find what happened with the stranger and he watches the subway station. When he sees the elegant butcher Mahogany in the train, Leon believes he might be a murderer and stalks him everywhere, in the beginning of his journey to the darkness.
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The Midnight Meat Train (2008) Reviews
for the splatter loving crowd
A vicious killer (Vinnie Jones) hunts the late-night subway with a meat hammer. Leon Kaufman (Bradley Cooper) is a street photographer who lives with waitress Maya (Leslie Bibb). Leon goes into the subway and breaks up a mugging. The woman goes on the train and is murdered by the killer. Leon goes to the police the next day but Detective Lynn Hadley suspects him. Gallery owner Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields) gets interested in the pictures of the muggers and suggests getting more pictures of the same intensity. Leon goes back to the subway and suspects he has found the actual killer. He starts stalking him. There is plenty of blood and CGI gore but not much tension for the first half. Vinnie Jones is good at menacing. I don't really buy what Maya does. However it all climaxes with a fun bloody fight on the subway. The great aspect of Clive Barker's stories is the dark demonic hidden other world. This movie needs to start with that idea instead of keeping it all for the reveal. This is a good Midnight Madness movie for the splatter loving crowd.
"Please...step away from the meat" Spoilers!
That was the funniest line in the movie, and sadly the movie is just OK. I was upset when I heard that Lions Gate was going to dump this flick on DVD. I even wrote Joe Drake an email pleading that it get a regular release. (he's probably laughing at me right now) I stood in line with a butt load of folks to see the midnight screening last night at the Nuart in Los Angeles. I stood next to the director. I was standing near the writer too (who seemed either drunk or stoned when he first walked in, but then, maybe that's just how he is on the regular). I was excited. This was the one time it would play in a theater near me. I saw it. A couple of problems for me. 1. Pacing. There seemed to be scenes that slowed the story down and derailed the momentum. I wanted to feel like the protagonist was spiraling into a world that he should not have knowledge of, and yet he is drawn to it like a moth to a flame. Perhaps more editing. Especially the love scenes. 2. The Girlfriend. Men, please stop making women in your movies cliché, shrill and annoying. There were forced love scenes and quite frankly, the actress added to the slow pacing. She should've been proactive and supportive of the leads journey into hell. And do we need to see women falling down while running away YET AGAIN?! Conflict is essential in a story, but it should be natural conflict that pushes the story forward, not contrived and coming off as nagging. Every time she came on screen I just waited for her to get off screen to get our guy back into the story. Side note, I thought Brooke Shields should've been the chick. She was great. Cold. Calculating. The type that would push her man further into the pit. That's the woman the lead needed, and he got the stereotypical girly-girl. Boo!!!! 3. The Butcher. He was creepy, but I felt that we shouldn't have seen him fully until halfway through the movie. The scary moments in any film is the fear of not knowing. In this movie we got glimpses of the Butcher, creating tension and fear for Kaufman. But soon after we see him fully as a regular human who kills people, it moved from horror into a slasher-suspense movie. It should've been more than that. The supernatural element should've been pushed more with The Butcher. The short story presented something epic and ancient in scope. The Butcher was a necessary job that had to be done to keep The City running. Once the film became a simple slasher-gore fest (which is not bad in any movie as long as the story works with it and we care about the leads), the Butcher just became a run-of-the-mill serial killer, no different than Jason, Michael Meyers or Freddy Fruger. Those guys did their killings for revenge. The Butcher has to kill to keep order in the human world. Just like ancient Greeks and Romans and other cultures that made human sacrifices to appease the Gods, an offering if you will. That was the reveal in the short story. In the movie, he just kills for some nasty monsters we barely see at the end. Bad! The Butcher had noble work to do. Nasty work yes, (like any butcher in real life who kills the meat for society to consume. Most people eat burgers and steaks without thinking about what has to be done to the animals that provide that great meal. Please, go visit a slaughterhouse.)but it must be done for the rest of us to survive. This movie missed that point at the end. 4. Some of the kill sequences were just there to see how cool the CGI effects could be done. It stopped being scary to becoming typical Eli Roth/Saw 3-5 schlock. How many cool ways can we kill a person? Horror, to me anyway, should be horrific, not funny. Once it becomes funny at the expense of not really scaring people, then you've lost me. Granted, one of the funniest lines in the movie was when the subway train conductor tells Kaufman (after the train has ended its run) "Please, step away from the meat." The humor is surreal and it works at that moment because of the banality of the line. The conductor could've been saying, "Please step away from the ramp/shoe/dog etc". The conductor has a job to do, and so does the Butcher, so please step away from our work. Classic. All that said, the movie is a mixed bag. I'd be curious to see what Clive Barker had to say. The film looks great, nice atmosphere, set design etc. I might've recast the two leads, but I'm glad I got to see it in a theater. I had the opportunity to get a real movie experience with the film.
Just Didn't Work for Me
"Midnight Meat Train" is the story of a photographer who wants to capture the real heart of New York City. A chance encounter with a model who's being threatened by some toughs in a subway station leads to his discovery and eventual obsession with what appears to be a serial killer who finds his victims on the late-night trains. I know this one has its fans, and MMT had its moments, with some refreshing gore. However, it just didn't work for me on any level. The leads were bland and I never cared about them. The pacing was off and never gave me any sense of dread - people just stumbled around, got on the subway, got killed, the photographer started to watch, go crazy, then solve the mystery. And there were too many ridiculous fight scenes. At its heart, "Midnight Meat Train" had an interesting story once it got to the end. But I think it would have worked better as a short film, because I felt it was way too padded to make any sort of impact.
A Good Ride
I saw this movie just now at a local discount theater, and I certainly can't say that I wanted my dollar back. The worst thing a horror film can be is boring, and Midnight Meat Train is never dull. Neither is it quite as exciting or tense as would be ideal, but you take what you can get. Based on Clive Barker's classic short story, the film is about photographer Leon (Bradley Cooper), who wants to capture on film the "true" New York City. He has to sell photos of crimes and accidents to tabloids for money, though. He is given a meeting with a legendary art dealer (Brooke Shields), and accepts her advice to explore individual places more closely, in hopes of finding the image that impresses her and gets him a break in the art world. He ends up encountering strange doings during late-night subway rides, and becomes obsessed with a silent, severe butcher (Vinnie Jones) who bludgeons passengers to death on a regular basis. The movie works mainly because of its director. Ryuhei Kitamura might be the best visual stylist working in the horror genre. The scenes of suspense, intrigue, and horror are all inventively shot, while never distracting from what's actually going on. His timing of scares, however, could use some work. Jeff Buhler's script has quality dialog, good pacing, and is generally efficient. The greatest weakness of the film is its lead actor. Cooper lacks the charisma and intensity necessary to involve the audience fully in Leon's descent into the underworld. But I said before, it is never boring. The time passes easily, blood flows freely, but only when it needs to, and it is a joy to look out. It deserved a much wider and better promoted release, and is certainly worth seeking out.
Good scare - Barker done proper
Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) is big bad butcher, whose weapon of choice is a mallet and an ice hook. Day after day, night after night he takes the 2 am train to hell, where unsuspecting passengers are massacred and then hung up like dead meat. Leon (Bradley Cooper) is an up and coming photograph, who is trying to make it critically, but so far his work has been unable to break it. His biggest fan and believer is his beautiful fiancée Maya (Leslie Bibb). One chance session in the subway changes the direction of his life. First he photographs a model being harassed by some thugs and after saving her from them takes a picture of her entering the 2 am train... Clive Barker has really been prolific with all the horror he has caused come to life on the big screen. It is enough to mention that his stories was the backbone of such classics as Hellraiser or Candyman. That said he has also been raped as a horror writer with atrocities such as Rawhead Rex. This movie doesn't hit the highs or the lows, but I must say it was pretty decent and definitely one of the best genre movies I have seen lately. No matter has essentially idiotic the plot I have to say it did cut loose of the copycat phase in horror cinema we are currently at. It had a certain freshness to it not only in the way it was told, but also in subject matter itself. I won't go as far as to say it was breakthrough original, but it was darn intriguing all the way through. I normally rate a good horror movie based on gut feeling. The moment you can't wait to know what will happen at the end of the movie or in the next scene for that matter and at the same time you have to fight with yourself to continue watching - that lets you know this horror flick is actually pretty good. Definitely full of flaws and the graphic gore isn't my kind of horror meal. Acting was great and tech credits all round were superb. Ryûhei Kitamura deserves accolades for this horror movie. Maybe not a classic, but given the far fetched material he had to work with it is a triumph.