There are some things that make me very scared – clowns, growing old alone, teeth and fingernail mutilation, and bumping into Vinnie Jones in an empty underground train carriage.
Based on a Clive Barker short story, THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN stars Vinnie Jones, being Vinnie Jones, being a violent serial killer called Mahogany stalking the underground transport system. His task in the film is basically to look like a thug, and director Ryuhei Kitamura plays to his strengths by giving him a role where he can really explore being unrelentingly violent without having to memorize pages of complicated dialogue.
The film has a gruesome and memorable opening, with people being slaughtered in a late-night train by Mahogany wielding a meat hammer and a butcher’s hook. The murderer is relentless, with no emotion and possessing unnatural strength.
After meeting renowned art gallery owner Susan Hoff (played by Brooke Shields), Leon (Bradley Cooper), a freelance photographer struggling to break it into the art world, takes to the streets to capture the “real life of the city”. One night while photographing a girl being terrorized by a gang he decided to intervene and she manages to escape to catch her train. The next day Leon sees an article in the newspaper stating she has gone missing and becomes obsessed with finding the murderer.
The film is beautifully shot – like a splatter version of LOST IN TRANSLATION – and it seems strange that such a striking film with the pulling power of a Clive Barker story behind it would be derailed by the distributors – because that is what Lions Gate did. The film was buried when it was released in cinemas – much to the anger and disappointment of horror film and Clive Barker fans alike.
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN is possibly the best horror film you have never heard of. It manages to be sophisticated while losing none of the raw blood-and-guts brutality you’d expect from an adaptation of a Clive Barker short story, and as far as I am concerned, Vinnie Jones can do no wrong when cast as a murderous thug – it is a role he was born to play.
THE MIDNIGHT MEAT TRAIN extreme edition is out now on DVD and Blu-ray from Lions Gate and is available from major retailers including Amazon
Review: Sara Passmore