Midnight Meat Train (2008)

AMCTV.com 8 of 10
Having started out directing shot-on-video, self-financed action and supernatural projects, director Ryuhei Kitamura's big break came with 2000's zombies vs. martial artists hoedown, Versus. The style-drunk story of a man in the woods who fights an army of zombies and an evil wizard, it is undeniably one of the greatest debut films ever made. From there, Kitamura graduated to Azumi (samurai chick in short-shorts takes on a massive army and ninjas), and then, Godzilla: Final Wars...Enter Midnight Meat Train...When Patrick Tatopoulos (designer of the 1998 Hollywood version of Godzilla) dropped out as director, Kitamura stepped in. Based on one of Clive Barker's best-remembered short stories from his 1984 collection, The Books of Blood, it's the story of a man on the subway who discovers the hard way that a killer is butchering passengers on the late night train...MMT is stylish as all get-out. Shot in some anonymous every-city, it's filmed in urine-soaked yellows, steel blues, medical waste greens and spiked with inky, chewable shadows. Every piece of wallpaper is artfully water-stained, every carpet carefully worn down to the consistency of an old scab. In other words, it looks exactly like Se7en...The actors -- Bradley Cooper, Leslie Bibb -- are mostly forgettable. Vinnie Jones, on the other hand, becomes downright iconic, one of the best new horror movie monsters to come along since, well, since Clive Barker gave us Pinhead in his directorial debut, Hellraiser. Sitting immobile on the subway for hours on end like some kind of homicidal Forrest Gump, he's a glowering, stalking, sad, Frankenstein's monster. The director does force him to head butt someone twice, which lowers him immensely -- Vinnie Jones has to head butt someone in every movie -- but at least here, he gets to do it with a human skull. - Grady Hendrix
 
A Nutshell Review 8 of 10
The Midnight Meat Train, as the title suggests, tells of the last train in the system where passengers inexplicably disappears, and I thought that Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura managed to put a somewhat refreshing spin to the entire slasher and torture porn genre...Based on a short story by horror Meister Clive Barker, the story in parts looked like horror thrillers with recognizable moments like those in The Terminator, Shutter, and of course, Jeepers Creepers. If I were to have to take the last train, I definitely wouldn't want to bump into Vinny's sharp dressed Mahogany, a character who is almost like any other Vinny Jones character of being the muscleman. Here, he's a butcher with a penchant of waiting for the last train, and armed with nothing more than knives, meat hooks and his personal favourite, a meat tenderizer, he proceeds to chop up unsuspecting victims as the train seem to speed off into the unknown...And there's where the story becomes intriguing, as it poses a lot of questions and doesn't provide you with any clear answers, until much later...The last time I remembered watching a major action sequence involving trains was in Batman Begins, and given that it has to live up to titular expectations, audiences were treated to some incredible all-out action scenes set in and around the train, with some really energetic camera movement and angles to complement the action on screen...But technicalities aside, what really worked and will possibly elevate this film to cult status, will be portrayal and fleshing out the character of Mahogany as the no-nonsense and swift executioner, adding to the list of memorable villains to have graced the screen amongst the likes of the Freddies, Jasons and the Michael Myers of the cinematic world. - Stefan S.