Saturday 26 October 2013

The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

A silent and unnamed man (Vinnie Jones) is killing people on quiet, late night trains in the New York subway, but with no bodies are turning up, the victims are listed only as "Missing People".
A photographer photographs a woman minutes before her disappearance, and his investigation leads him to the killer.
Unable to convince the police, he becomes obsessed with the man, and is determined to find proof.


Clive Barker's short story of the same name, Leon, falls asleep on the train and witnesses the mayhem for himself straight away; obviously to stretch this to feature length, we can't have our hero board the train until the final act; interestingly, rather than stretch it out into a mystery, the film makers (presumably realising that a lot of the audience will have already read the short) opens with us witnessing Jones in the act, before we even meet Leon. A gamble, but one that I think paid off.

Jones is great in the role (admittedly being given little to do - when he isn't killing he's sat motionless) dispatching his human cattle quickly and coldly, only occasionally seeming to enjoy his work (and even then, only when "provoked"), the only complaint that can be leveled at the kill scenes is some truly horrendous digital blood. Why do film makers do that? is corn syrup really more expensive than CGI?

Sadly, being based on a short story, there isn't much more too the film... Leon photographs the killer, obsesses over the photos for a bit, photographed him again, is disbelieved by the police, obsesses for a bit, is disbelieved by his girlfriend... and so on. As a result, it does drag a little towards the end of the second act.

It's worth a watch, but I'm not going to mark it "recommended", as I wouldn't go out of my way to see it, but if its on, or someone offers to lend you it, you could do a lot worse.

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