The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

(On Cable TV, August 2020) There’s a bizarre mixture of elements in The Midnight Meat Train that entertains as much as it frustrates. At first, we may or may not be in psychological thriller territory as a Manhattan photographer (Bradley Cooper, in a pre-stardom role) takes pictures of people who then die or disappear in the subway. Is he to blame? The police seem to think he’s a person of interest, even as we’re shown the violent actions of a butcher (Vinnie Jones, suitably menacing) who seems to be using a subway car as his own abattoir. Fantasy or delusion? The excessively gory nature of the story is in-keeping with the origins of the script in a splatterpunk Clive Barker story, even if it certainly should have been toned down. The mystery as to whether this is happening or not is resolved in the last fifteen minutes of the film with a plot development so extreme that you’re allowed a few minutes (in the form of a meaningless fight) to digest it. It’s certainly… out there. Whether it works is to be debated, as the film takes a hard-supernatural turn that the beginning of the film may not have properly foreshadowed. Still, it does transform The Midnight Meat Train from a routine psychological thriller(ish) to something far more interesting to discuss.