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The Midnight Meat Train is a movie I had no real desire to watch. It's just kinda been floating around the bottom of my queue as a just in case sort of thing, and finally floated up because I had no power and couldn't shuffle it down. I think it made it on there in the first place because special effects were handled by the guy who did Tokyo Gore Police or something, but, to my understanding it's an American slasher movie, based on a story by Clive Barker. Anyway, we start off with some guy alone in a subway car slipping and falling in a giant pool of blood, eventually getting up, and looking through the window to see how like 2 cars down, some dude was totally serial killing some folks. Then some reporter takes the audience's picture, and now here he is talking to his girlfriend about something I'm totally not paying attention to.
Now he's heading off to meet someone for an interview at an art gallery. You know, I've always had something of a problem with art photography. It's not that I don't think it involves skill, or the results are never interesting, it's just that it doesn't usually involve any actual creativity. It's more like you're reporting the discovery of interesting things than actually making them. I mean, a photographer sees something really inspiring, and takes a picture, and that's it. A painter sees the same inspiring scene and then, you know, takes that inspiration, and goes and paints something. Kind of a big difference. Anyway, the gallery owner picks on him for taking pictures of bums sitting near rich guys and not of, say, rich guys shoving away bums for invading their personal space. So he goes down to the subway and takes some pictures of some girl some random hoodlums are about to rape, and, being distracted by this, they advance on him, at which point he points out a security camera nearby, and they run off not wanting to be arrested... which they probably still could be at that point, but, I guess the charges could go up if they increase. After, the girl thanks him, gets on the subway, and is killed. Specifically, there's this scene of some big guy with I guess it's a hammer or something approaching, totally out of focus, and really unceremoniously clunks her upside the head with it while still all out of focus. In context it's actually pretty neat, because you totally see it coming, but it still comes really unexpectedly, you know?
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Anyway, he finds out about this, and takes some copies of his pictures to the police, because evidence. The police are all "Why the hell were you taking a bunch of pictures of some dudes about to rape some girl exactly?" He's all, "Er..." but not much comes of it. He then takes them to the gallery owner, who totally digs'em and wants more of a similar nature. Now here's Ted Raimi! Hi Ted! Nice to see you in a big budget mainstream sorta thing your brother didn't work on! Shame it has to be as a slasher victim who gets taken out, like, the second you show up though. Oh, and it definitely wasn't special effects pedigree that got this on my list. Because wow that is a lot of CGI blood. Anyway, we totally get to see the killer, and it isn't anyone we know or anything, just... some dude with a hammer who kills people on the subway, apparently for the heck of it. He totally one hit kills Ted Raimi, and his eye goes shooting out of his head, where his wife trips on it, then takes out their friend with a meathook he has in his other hand, kills him too with the hammer, and eventually takes off Wifey's head in this fun little POV shot where her head goes spinning off away from her body and lands to watch it hit the ground. I'm actually a tad annoyed, because I've never seen that before, and I've long held a secret wish of getting some people together and shooting a low budget horror anthology where I totally wanted to do that exact thing at some point.
Anyway, photographer happens to see killer as he's leaving the subway, and takes a bunch of pictures of him, because hey, he's a pretty serious looking dude. He gets annoyed and stops him, and he gets a chance to see his really distinctive little septagram. Then he notices it on the hand holding the door open when he took a picture of that girl from earlier boarding the train. So... OK, you can't see the ring in the pictures where you can totally see the guy's face, but this is totally a point at which you should be taking this information to the police pal. Or at the very least tell someone so they can pick up the trail after you get killed stalking the guy. Like that cop right there. The one who just stopped you while you were trying to follow him onto the subway because you looked so suspicious. Now.. this is weird. Killer ends up on a car with just this one big tough black guy, whose attire would suggest he's one of those... whatdoyoucall'em, guardian angels? Suddenly the train hops onto a non-standard track, he goes to kill him, generally fails because he's one of those dudes who fights crime on subways and all. They fight for a while, all hammer vs. knife, and Killer's not particularly winning, but then the driver of the train comes and shoots the guardian angel, because, obviously, he's his accomplice. Hence the train hopping to the non-standard track.
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Now here's Photographer abandoning all this stuff to have some surprise sex with his girlfriend at the bar she's closing up. Then he has some crazy nightmare where he's butchering people on the train himself, and there's a whole car full of corpses on meathooks in the back. That was all pretty quick, but anyway, seriously dude, why are you not sharing your knowledge of how this guy is totally a serial killer with anyone? Oh and meanwhile, Killer goes home after doing his killing, opens his shirt to reveal... weird chest lumps. He takes a knife and slices a couple off, putting them in one of the many jars he keeps in his medicine cabinet for this purpose. Oh and Killer is also a butcher, as leaned by Photographer while stalking him. So today he's going to do some more of that, at the day job. Just kinda sneaking around, taking pictures of him slicing up meat. He totally notices this, and goes to confront or possibly kill him. Honestly, I'd think confront, because dude, he's at his day job here. Still, we get a big long chase scene through the beef side storage freezer. He escapes though.
Then he goes to his favorite diner and forgoes his usual vegetarianism to have some steak. Presumably this is to represent his growing taste for danger and whatnot, but I prefer to think he was just so taken by the clean operating conditions of his local meat packing plant that he got over his issues with the industry. Anyway, he goes home and does some serious research, and gets himself a right proper Investigation Wall set up. His girlfriend sees this and is fairly concerned. Honestly, he doesn't do a very good job of explaining i, because he's kinda going crazy. He tries to calm her down by taking some Sexy Pictures of her, but gets all flashbacky about the rape thing. And oh, she works at the diner, not a bar. So yeah, he goes to apologize to her later, and oh hey, Killer kinda stalks him, watching him through the window. Suppose it's only fair he get some of his own medicine there. Anyway, free of interruptions, Photographer finally manages to follow Killer onto the subway, to hopefully take some pictures of him killing someone. Which... I guess he wants more for his art show at this point than for justice? This is actually based on something from a short story collection I've been strongly urged to read, and it really feels like the sort of thing you need to give an internal monologue when converting to a movie. Anyway, yeah, eventually he totally kills some people while Photographer is in the next car keeping his head down, and begins doing some gross and nasty stuff to them which he totally gets photos of. Specifically, he removes all their teeth, hair, nails, and eyes. Presumably, if they also had rings, he'd have taken those, and Simon Belmont would have to go hunt all these things down. He then hangs them off meathooks, like we saw in that dream earlier.
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Killer totally sees him taking his picture, and he really has nowhere to run to. He tries getting the conductor to stop the train, but, well, that obviously doesn't work out for him. Killer just kinda comes along and clocks him against the door, knocking him out. And... then stuff gets weird. In what I guess is a dream maybe, he's dangling by his feet in the subway, Killer is dispassionately looking at him from the next car, and... uh... some demon claws up his torso? Possibly crawling inside? He wakes up later in the meat packing plant, wanders around in a daze, and goes home to talk to his girlfriend about how his night went. Girlfriend's reaction is OK, first, you're going to the hospital to deal with that slashed up torso, then we're taking your pictures to the cops. He objects, since they took his camera. Also, because he clearly doesn't know the first thing about how cops work. Seriously. You are an eye witness to this guy killing people. You have, at home, pictures of this guy, evidence of him being on a train along with someone who died immediately after getting on that train. You also have everything on your crazy evidence wall, but frankly, you're pretty well set with even just the witness bit.
So naturally, what comes next is Girlfriend and Friend sneaking into Killer's apartment and going through his stuff, by themselves, never having contacted the cops or anything. Trying to find his camera I guess. Because it's not like there's any chance he just yanked the film out and burned it. Friend finds the camera actually, while Girlfriend finds the.... chest bump collection. Also, Killer comes home while they're snooping around and kills Friend, because, well, you're kind of even allowed to do that when you find people snooping around your apartment. Well, not really, but if you're a serial killer to begin with it's pretty much a given that you're going to. Girlfriend gets creeped out and flees before she can be also murdered. Meanwhile Photographer has not going to the hospital, and is just kinda hanging out bleeding in a bathtub.
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Girlfriend FINALLY goes to the cops. The cops tell her she's kinda guilty of breaking and entering, also of stealing his book of memento train schedules from 100 years worth of killing. Because stealing is wrong. Oh and apparently, the bath was in preparation for his big art expo, to show off his photos from stalking Killer. Girlfriend meanwhile continues to be relatively reasonable, getting a gun to protect herself and trying to warn Photographer that stuff is up. Cop randomly kinda stalks her, and there's some indication that she is actually of the corrupt variety, and totally knows everything that's going on here. Also, here's Photographer gearing up in butchery gear to... surprise twist start serial killing himself, I suppose? Because he's possessed by a demon? The other option is that he's preparing for some kind of Butcher Duel but that really doesn't sound likely. Meanwhile, acting on weird info from Cop, girlfriend gets on the murder subway.
Now here's some random awesome synthy music, as Photographer, waiting for the subway, sees girlfriend on it as it whizzes past. He goes all hero mode and hops the back of it. And.... wow. So OK, Girlfriend finds the body car, which contains a still alive Friend hanging there, andwhile she's freaking out at that, we actually get a boob shot in a movie that's so far been totally clean and not particularly gorey. It belongs to someone Killer's prepping to hang up. Anyway, he sees her, advances on her, she tries to shoot him but fails, twice, being pretty understandably shaken by all the horribly horror of the situation. Killer throws his hammer and hits her in he knee with it, starts closing in, but in comes Photographer shouting "Hey!" And then you know what happens? Butcher duel! I was really expecting him to suddenly start killing people. It's a pretty crazy little duel too. Hammer vs. knife mainly, with both of them dodging between all the hanging corpses, missing and hitting them, eventually making things pretty freaking gorey with all the accidental desecration. Main character winds up on the ground at one point and loses his knife, but grabs an arm he accidentally cut off someone and uses it as a club, disarming Killer. So eventually he wins, because disarming someone with an arm is just too awesome not to lead to victory. Unfortunately, after they end up trading weapons, Friend gets hit with one of Killer's knife swings and, remember how he wasn't dead? Well now he is. Still, Photographer eventually shoves him out door that got bashed open earlier, and all is safe and well and he and girlfriend can start their "everything is fine now" make out session. Which they almost do, but oh hey, theirs our dead friend hanging there upside down and naked with his guts spilling out, and that's kind of a mood killer.
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Then the movie takes an unexpected turn into relatively awesome. The train stops, the conductor comes back and just tells them, "Please, step away from the meat." and heads back up. They're pretty obviously bewildered, but get off just before a bunch of demons, or maybe they're just CHUDs, board the train and collect all the bodies. So... now our heroes are just wandering around in this weird abandoned subway tunnel and/or hell, and it's pretty freaking weird. Then killer shows up though, and it's time for another surprisingly awesome fight. Photographer starts things off by throwing a human skull at him, which he catches, and throws back, then they both just start fighting with bones. At some point, he notices that in addition to the weird chest bumps, Killer has weird demon and/or CHUD scars similar to the ones Photographer just picked up. Anyway, he wins and a dying Killer mutters something like "Thanks, and welcome" before he dies. Then Conductor comes along and he's all "So yeah. These things have apparently lived down here longer than humanity's existed, and they'd totally come up and just wipe us all out if there weren't a secret society of people feeding them random subway passengers. That guy was actually kinda starting to go soft and wanted you to kill him and take his place. So... here, let me rip your tongue out and eat it, you eat your girlfriend's still-beating head here, then we'll go back up top, and Cop will give you your murdering schedule, OK? And THEN we get around to the ending I was expecting before the Butcher Duel suddenly broke out.
Anyway, to give some idea of just how long this thing has been lying around the bottom of my queue, apparently what got me to add it was that it was directed by the same guy as Versus and Godzilla: Final Wars. Holy cow it's been forever since I watched those. Pre-Consciousness Streaming. Anyway, yeah. That was not really my kind of movie, and again, it had to have inherently worked much much better as a short story than a movie just, inherently based on the story structure, but for what it was it was pretty well done. That bit with the out of focus kill was one of a few examples where it was just totally nonchalant about what traditional movie logic dictates should be totally in your face with big flashing arrows pointing at it, and cliche twist aside, the sharp left turn into crazy town at the end was almost as groovy as how, seriously, I was not at all expecting the Butcher Duel to happen.
