Midnight Meat Train Movie Review

Subways, the transportation system - not the restaurant, are scary for us folks that don’t have to use them regularly. Please don’t take that wrong, I am sure they are not exactly inviting like grandma’s house on Thanksgiving afternoon for those that must use them regularly. The point is subways are just a trove of menacing thoughts and potential. That is the point in Midnight Meat Train – that potential for what could happen.

The title really says it all on this one

From the confined areas on the platform to get on the subway train to the even more confined spaces of the train itself, Midnight Meat Train really pushes the envelope of “nope-uations”. Once you know that this movie is based on a short story by Clive Barker then it all becomes quite clear and almost makes sense, at least a little bit.

Dude is not right in the head.

I say that from the point of view as a fan, one that realized as I was researching this movie’s production that I am apparently a bigger fan of Barker’s than I thought before. That is easy, but beside the point, as before researching Midnight Meat Train, I had no idea I was a fan of Barker’s work.

On with the fun on this crazy train (sorry, no Ozzy here)

Unlike my earlier review, Black Water, Midnight Movie Train is a little slower on getting the action going. This is obvious as we have a lot more work to cover here than in that creature feature. For one, we have only one main character to follow super closely, Leon Kaufman (portrayed by Bradley Cooper – maybe you have heard of him before), a freelance photographer living in a large city. The exact name of the city escapes me right now. Doesn’t matter, if your city has a subway then you can imagine these events occurring under your feet.

Leon has a girlfriend, Maya Jones (played by Leslie Bibb), who is super supportive of his work. At least early on. There is also Brooke Shields as Susan Hoff, the gallery owner/presenter Leon is trying to impress and is ultimately the crux of Leon’s descent into death and destruction. Finally, we have Jurgis (played by Roger Bart) who is best friends with both Leon and Maya. These characters are there to give Leon grounding as a person and all that good stuff – and what horror movie only has one person in the protagonist role without a team?

You don’t have to pay these characters all that much mind in the overall movie though. They move the story forward without Leon seeming to have completely lost his mind in his pursuit but don’t offer much more.

Horror is all about the bad guy

Midnight Meat Train is no different. Unlike horror movies like Friday the 13^th or even A Nightmare on Elm Street, we know precious little about the killer here. I cannot go into too much detail about the ending because it would ruin the movie, though I can say, damn, that was good.

Our main bad guy here is a subway riding monster of a man that is seemingly killing for no reason. We get the occasional news snippet about missing persons and the like – watchful viewers will recognize some of them, but not all. This is clearly a large-scale situation and we are only seeing the tip of the iceberg here.

Leon runs afoul of the bad guy by happenstance – just stupid luck at play. He is attempting to “capture the city” in his pictures to impress the gallery owner. He snaps a few pics of the bad guy leaving the subway for instance, not knowing who he has in his view finder at the time.

It turns out the bad guy works at a local butcher shop. A location that is full of other workers and plays into the activities underground quite well.

There is gore, not gratuitous but it is there

People die in Midnight Meat Train. They die early on and throughout the movie. Midnight Meat Train is rated R for a reason. While the gore is sometimes unsettling, it is not gratuitous meaning the gory stuff is shown once and that is it. Every time that same situation occurs in the movie, we are not treated to seeing it from a new angle. We know what is going on and the details are left to our imaginations. I am fine with that because some of these scenes are gory.

There is also some nudity both male and female. The nudity is kept to the “acceptable by mainstream audiences” of buttocks and women’s breasts (well one). If you are letting younger viewers in on movies like Friday the 13^th then you see far more nudity and such there than you will in Midnight Meat Train. Here it is actually part of the story rather than a “talking point” used to get teens to rent the movie.

Not a box office success at all

Somehow, Midnight Meat Train earned less than $100k in theaters in the United States and less than $4 million worldwide. Just wow. That is horrible. According to Wikipedia, this is because Lionsgate screwed up the release and Midnight Meat Train was only shown in the secondary market and on about 100 screens nationwide. It also apparently came out shortly after another Lionsgate horror movie, The Strangers which I can only guess was getting the marketing push instead.

It is notable that Midnight Meat Train was a production by Clive Barker’s Midnight Picture Show studio with Lionsgate only having a cursory involvement in development. Might be a case of promoting home grown content first, might not be. Lionsgate execs could have had little faith in Midnight Meat Train. I am not sure since I was not there, but it seems fishy to me as a fan.

This is my fourth- or fifth time watching Midnight Meat Train. It is a fun psychological-lite horror fest that has a story and a real build up of suspense and scary events. Hard to find that combination in the horror genre. Definitely one to watch if you are a fan of this genre or are looking to test the waters for something a little more gory, but not over the top.

You can grab a copy of Midnight Meat Train on Amazon (get it faster with Prime) or get it with eBay. If you want to watch it before buying, you can enjoy it uninterrupted via Amazon Prime Video or for free on Tubi (where I watched it) but with occasional advertising.