The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

I’ve got a train to catch.

— Leon Kauffman

I never heard of The Midnight Meat Train until I heard it mentioned on different podcasts over the past couple of months. Being that this is the beginning of my “Creep-A-Thon”, I decided to check this movie out. It is an intriguing movie until the very end.

Leon (Bradley Cooper) is struggling photographer that listens to police calls. He tries to take pictures of the crime scenes before it’s cleaned up. On the encouragement of his long-time girlfriend, Maya (Leslie Bibb) suggests that he shows his work to a local art dealer, Susan Hoff (Brooke Shields).

A mutual friend, Jurgis (Roger Bart) has the two meet at her gallery. Susan likes his work but she wants real visceral pictures from him. Leon sets out to get a “once in a lifetime” shot.

Restless one night, he walks the streets of New York and sees a trio of troublemakers. He follows them into the subway where they are about to violate a model, Erika Sakaki (Nora). He takes pictures of the incident before it escalades.

The next day, Leon reads in the newspapers that the same model disappears. Leon looks back on his pictures and pieces together that quiet man simply named Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) is somehow responsible for the disappearance.

Leon follows Mahogany to work as a butcher in a local slaughterhouse and catching him on the same train in the early morning, killing people in the train cars. Leon increasingly becomes obsessed with this methodical killer. Why is he killing this people? Where is he putting the bodies? It becomes a cat and mouse game when Mahogany starts following Leon.

I thought it was going to another bloodbath movie, but the psychological aspects of the film when Leon’s descending into madness was gripping my attention. There were some interesting themes of this adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story. It was a psychological study of obsessive human behavior hidden behind buckets of blood.

I enjoyed this film when the final reveal happens. I was confused. I had no idea what I just saw or heard. Maybe it went over my head. I rewound it. Still didn’t get it. I was rooting for this different take on the slasher movie. In the end, I was disappointed.

Judgment: Two-thirds of a solid movie until the suck ass ending ruined it.

Rating: **1/2