No! This is not Porn

Midnight Meat Train

You gotta feel for the creators of Midnight Meat Train. While the movie was made for a theatrical release, it wound up being one more horror flick that got dumped straight to DVD-land. And while the circumstances surrounding that studio decision are a story in and of itself, what it comes down to is Hollywood politics rather than lack of a quality product. It’s a shame, really. While this movie isn’t going to be for everyone, it does hold up well.

The plot deals with a photographer named Leon who explores the city by night, trying to find material edgy enough to make it in the art photography world. The search brings him into contact with a killer named Mahogany (played by Vinnie Jones) who hunts the subway for victims, and makes his kills with a massive metal hammer. After Mahogany bashes his victim’s heads in, he prepares the bodies and hangs the dead meat by metal hooks in the train. Hence the title, which works great in an over-the-top, Grindhouse kind of way.

Leon becomes obsessed with Mahogany, and at first he’s determined to track him down and bring photographic proof to the police. But the hunt becomes much more than that, taking Leon to places both mental and physical that he could never see coming.

So what we have here is a solid movie that’s based on the work of Clive Barker, a well-known horror writer, and directed by Ryuhei Kitamura, a Japanese filmmaker best known for the zombie splatterfest “Versus.” Both of these guys have a devoted fan base, and either one of them could get a significant number of people into a theater. And yet, the movie was still dropped from mainstream release like a bastard son, and left to fend for itself in the wilds of DVD land. Oh, Hollywood. Why do you do these things?

In any case, it’s a good horror story, well-acted, and shot with a great eye for composition. Honestly, if the movie was more widely seen, it would have been good for the careers of both the director and the cinematographer.

Though to be fair, Midnight Meat Train isn’t perfect. There are decisions made by some characters that are a little too much in service of the plot, and are of questionable intelligence. Plus, too much time is spent on Leon’s girlfriend Maya as she figures out things that the audience already knows.

Then there’s the gore. There is plenty of it, right along with the inventive kills that this type of movie calls for. But the filmmakers chose to use an odd combination of CG and practical effects, and when the CG gore is onscreen, it’s a little too slick and polished to be convincing. Of course, these are not make-or-break problems, and by the end of the movie you’ll be having a good enough time that you can forgive these things.

And in case you haven’t noticed, Vinnie Jones is a scary, scary looking man. The guy looks right at home while skulking around a subway and knocking people around with a metal hammer. Who knows? If things had gone differently with the movie release, maybe he would’ve achieved horror-icon status. As it is, he’ll have to be satisfied with being the most intimidating guy in the room at any given time.

- Nate