Review of The Midnight Meat Train (2008) by Jim H — 14 Oct 2011
A photographer pursues dark subject matter that ultimately leads him on the trail of a psychopath who butchers subway passengers.
Like most slasher films, The Midnight Meat Train is both excessively gory, often to the point of ridiculousness, and devoid of substance. Compare this film to American Psycho, which has all the sex and gore that impress horror fans, and you can see how this film comes up wanting. In the film based on Bret Easton Ellis's novel, the horror motifs are leveraged to make a socio-cultural point about conformity; the closest thing to such a point here is the way violence becomes stimulating, sexually and creatively, for Leon. But this is point that's made over and over again, and it's losing credibility because I think making such a point serves merely as a convenient excuse for showing sex and gore.
There's nothing extraordinary about the performances or the direction; horror fans have seen all the tricks director Ryuhei Kitamura employs.
Overall, The Midnight Meat Train is every other horror film you've seen before.
This review of The Midnight Meat Train (2008) was written by Jim H on 14 Oct 2011.
The Midnight Meat Train has generally received mixed reviews.
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