Review of The Midnight Meat Train (2008) by Damion R — 28 Dec 2009

By the title alone, one would not expect much....and that's what you get. The story of a photographer looking for gritty photos to boost his career and falling upon a serial killer that slaughters his vicitims on an empty subway car in a gruesome fashion has promise, but sadly it jumps all over the place, leaving you unsure of what exactly is going on. I expected to be entertained by a run-of-the-mill torture-porn B-movie but alas, I was only surprised by the fact that not only is it based on a short story by the great Clive Barker, but stars names like Bradley Cooper and Brooke Shields and Roger Bart (best known as the crazy pharmacist from "Desperate Housewives"). So, with an A-list author and A- or B-list actors, you'd expect a MUCH better film than is presented here.

No doubt the title itself led to this lasting in cinema for maybe twenty minutes, if this was not a direct-to-DVD film, but the choppy (so to speak) storyline and unengaging script just made this slaughterfest a mediocre ride at best as you spend the entire film going "Huh? Why?..." The effects are somewhat clever at best. Being a huge fan of Bradley Cooper, I cannot undermine his performance in here, but his choice of film makes you wonder what he really got in return for doing this.

I can see this film engaging a cult of horror fans that might be engaged by the somewhat predictable story but I was not one of them.