Midnight Meat Train (2008)

The most terrifying ride you'll ever take.

*yawns*

It's the third time that I'm trying to watch this movie. Not that that's got to say anything about its quality - it just says that I have not been able to keep up enough suspense from the beginning to the end to actually *watch* this movie, instead of having a pleasang look at it from the corner of the eye.




The Midnight Meat Train is one of those movies that I never had high hopes resp. expectations for. I read the original story by Clive Barker (one of the better ones in his Books of Blood), and I have to admit that I liked it. No story I like can turn out good on screen... and Midnight Meat Train proves that once again.

I had high hopes for it, and if it had come to the big screen in Vienna, I'd have seen it - so apparently we either didn't get it or I missed it. Both valid possibilities.




Anyways... Midnight Meat Train. In the story, a photographer discovers gruesome evidence of one of the underground trains of New York going... somewhere. Somewhere else. And that somewhere else includes a butcher selecting clean meat for Them... and Them. It's a delicious story that opens up some questions about Clive Barker's universe and an intriguing read.

The movie... yeah.




The main protagonist plus his handful of friends are sympathetic enough, but at the same time exchangable.

At 0:19:25 we get Ted Raimi! Automatic +1 for the movie. I heart Ted Raimi. He has less than a minute to live. 49 seconds, to be exact. I love his character. Just as I love any of his short-lived cameos.




So... movie. Plot. Photographer who needs to make better pictures in order to secure money happens upon a mysterious guy in a suit, who apparently works at night until the morning comes. Fascinated for some obscure reason, the photographer starts following the man. He arrives in a meat packing plant on his heels of his mysterious quarry.




He also manages to take some pictures of Nyarlathotep the Younger*.

Who is waiting... waiting for something (the Butcher, not Nyarlathotep the Younger... or maybe he is? Or isn't? You decide...).

Or someone?

But a security guard stops him from entering the same train as the man he'd been following.

...

Our butcher has a problem (a quite unsavoury one at that) which makes him slower - worse - at his job: Procuring meat.

Human meat.




Our photographer starts to freak out a little bit when it seems that the people involved in the subway are also involved in unsolved abduction cases along the subway line... and of course, this doesn't go without consequences. Our vegetarian suddenly discovers the joys of meat (steak, to be precise), but things go downhill with his girlfriend. She thinks he's obsessing too much about the whole stuff with the missing persons and the butcher. After an argument, he agrees... only to follow the butcher the very same night

He sees his work. And the butcher sees him.

After what may or may be not a dream sequence, our photographer finds himself ...marked.




He tells his wife, but she doesn't believe him. He seems crazy to her, and she's scared - of him and of what might happen. That night, they try to break into the butcher's room at a hotel. There, they find various torture instruments.

I've always dreamt of one of these...

Anyways, jealousy on my part aside, the movie certainly is interesting. I guess that if the viewer is not familiar with Clive Barker's story, Midnight Meat Train can be an actually engaging film with an interesting storyline which is not quite as predictable as others within the genre. As with the original story, there are hints of something Greater beneath the streets and bowels of New York, the epitome of the City as a living hive.

I'd hit it. Quite literally. Possibly with the hook. *toothy grin*



I like to think of them as ghouls. Yeah, blame me for my impertinence.

I liked that they kept some of the details of the story. As in, really, really liked it. Overall, a surprisingly good adaption of the short story, and an entertaining movie in itself.







...9/10 sterilised meathooks


* See my Hellraiser review.

Bleeders aka Hemoglobin (1997)

Ah... H.P. Lovecraft.

I admit it, I am easy to please in some regards. Movies based on stories by HPL are one such thing. No matter how abysmally bad it is, I will see it and to some degree enjoy it. Bleeders aka Hemoglobin is based on the story "The Lurking Fear"... and indeed, it's not entirely off the mark.




The movie explains to us that there was a Dutch countess, Eva van Dam, who was of such a narcissistic nature that she only wished to make love to herself. Failing to be able to do that, she settled for the closest other thing: Her twin brother. And so, a love-story, fairy-tale and horrific dystopia began, lasting for hundreds of years...

Hemoglobin wants us to say hello to our main protagonist: John Strauss (as played by Roy Dupuis). He is pale, has lips that are a little bit too red, his eyes are of two different colours, he can't stand the sun for too long, he can't eat most foods, is always tired during the day, suffers from spontaneous nosebleeds and seizures as well as cramps, spasms and blackouts. It's clear from the beginning that he's not a healthy man.




Thing is, John Strauss is suffering from something that appears to be an incredibly rare genetic disease. John and his wife are traveling to an island from which John's ancestors possibly came from. There, they find some Dr. Marlowe (Rutger Hauer!)... and Dr. Marlowe doesn't come as the bearer of good news. Whilst he is examining the strange young man, the inhabitants of the island are exhuming coffins in the local burial ground - something there seems to be wrong with the ground, and they want to preserve the dead.

John and his wife (can't bother to look up the name right now) get a room at the local hotel. John has it bad - he can't stomach food, and even the mild light of dusk is too bright for his eyes. Walking around, they (well, mostly she) ask about the Strauss family - but to no avail. The people in this village aren't really willing to talk to people from outside the island.

[Insert sub-plot about necklace and burial and grave-robbery here]

Whilst John is falling asleep, his wife is visiting Dr. Marlowe, asking him if he thinks that what John has is hereditary. Dr. Marlowe mentions the Van Dams and their inbreeding habits - and shows her one of the Van Dam children.

Yes, that's formaldehyde.

Meanwhile, John is having flashbacks to... something. Somewhen. Disturbing images.

And he's hungry...

...it's night outside. And the gravedigger's daughter is out. Out in the graveyard...

It's a bit hard to type with that buzzing rhythm pulsing uncomfortably in my right side, so please bear with me. They travel to the Van Dam estate - it is empty now, as the last Van Dams died in a fire 75 years ago. An old woman is supposed to live up there, a nurse who might know more about John's disease.

Meanwhile, Dr. Marlowe is trying to make sense of John's test results, as he gets interrupted - by someone carrying the mauled body of a ...humanoid creature with him. Examining it further, the good Doctor ascertains that it appears to be human, but a hermaphrodite - a fully functional hermaphrodite, capable of replicating with itself.

Cut to John Strauss. He and his wife are surprised by an old woman who seems to recognise John. Further identification ensues, and the old woman tells him that he was the only surviving member of the Van Dam family, saved from the fire. When the talk turns to the desires and Cravings he feels, and he admit that he suffers from them but does not know what they are about, the old woman retreats fearfully, threatening both him and his wife and driving them away. Reluctantly, they leave.




In the meantime, we get one (1) child dragged into the ground through a hole.

Returning in fury, John demands of the old woman to know the truth - she couldn't have saved him from the fire because he wasn't 75 years old. It was his right to know the truth.

...and she shows him...

And the truth is... not all of the Van Dams are dead.

As a storm approaches mercilessly, the small island slowly descends into terror. John is sick and hardly able to move on his own; dark rain is cutting into the people's faces, thunder deafens human ears... and somewhere, something is crawling. Eating. Breeding. Feeding.




Dr. Marlowe discovers a group of... humanoids. Things. Mutated monstrosities of centuries of inbreeding... deformities feeding on corpses. It's the remaining family members of the Van Dams... apparently, they had been tunnelling underneath the cemetery for centuries since they disappeared from the eye of the public, feeding on corpses for generations - necrophagia and anthropophagia in general (but mostly necrophagia). Them lucky ghouls*.

Formulating an answer to John's problem in his mind, Marlowe talks to him and his wife, leaving a jar. With a Van Dam embryo in it. For John to feed on it.




After devouring the fetus, John is filled with vigour, life and power.

Then some other stuff happens. It involves a lot of screaming, hysterical people, deformed monstrosities, light, darkness, psychological terror, ...

...and then my favourite scene EVER.

EVER.

And no, I won't tell you about it (actually, it's two scenes, but what the heck).

Bleeders aka Hemoglobin is a very atmospheric movie; a friend of mine called it "dreamy", and I think that's a word that can be employed with a good conscience when talking about this movie. It has a dream-like quality - much more so than the short story "The Lurking Fear" upon which this movie was loosely based.

If you like Lovecraftian inbreeding stories, then you should enjoy Bleeders a lot. And if you like slightly weird, character-centered movies, you should give it a go as well. I would recommend it to the vampires-crowd, but Hemoglobin isn't pretty and shiny enough for that. And I'm perfectly fine with that. Ghouls have rights, too**.

Rutger Hauer's performance is not as great as it could have been, but then again, I compare each of his performances with The Hitcher... so he naturally pales in comparison to his old self. Roy Dupuis has some really fine moments in the second act of the movie - when the film starts, I sometimes wanted to bitchslap him for being artificial, but during the second act, everything he did became fluent and natural. I now wonder if I haven't been a bit too harsh, for maybe the artificiality of the character of John Strauss is not just an accident of bad acting but an intended characterisation of the persona being incorporated.




9/10 whole new sets of senses...

*You might be wondering why I classify this as a ghoul movie, but considering my personal definition of a ghoul, it fits.

**If I ever should find myself leader of a political party, that will be my motto.

Cannibal Flesh Riot! (2006?)

First "official" review, and hell, I get to review a movie that has been ignored by the sites I usually frequent as a lurking ghost.

Cannibal Flesh Riot!

Don't stop reading now - the title of the movie might sound like crap, but trust me... this is a movie that every fan of old-school horror with a sense of humour needs to see. And I want to emphasise the "NEEDS TO SEE".

I can't really talk about the plot, for doing so would rob you of the whole joy that this movie produces (I already wrote another review of it, and the abundance of terms like "awesome", "perfect", "perfect in so many ways" etc. - I'd add the Sumerian terms, but hey, I'm already annoying enough - was too overwhelming. And I mean TOO overwhelming...) and gives.

One word:

Perfect.

To elaborate further - Cannibal Flesh Riot! is why the medium of film was created. I am serious about this - the dialogues are wonderful, and the visuals are as well. To be frank, the dialogue is what keeps this short by Gris Grimly (www.madcreator.com) alive, kicking, and makes the movie an absolute must.

Two ghouls make their way to a grave, discussing how to deal with the police if some of those guys come to your house and walk into your kitchen (not such a good thing to happen if you happen to have bloody remains of human hands lying around), or how to use condiments - because human flesh gets really boring after a few decades. Gods, I can empathise with that... erm... I mean, I can't. I wouldn't ever think of making people spice up their food to... uh...

Yes.
Cannibal Flesh Riot!...

Frankly, it's the best movie (I'll call it a movie, even though it's a 34 minutes short) I've ever seen. The two protagonists have a nearly perfect coordination, their acting is more than brilliant (take the "condiments trauma", for example), and hell... it's awesome. Personally, I could have done without the end, but hell - this short is awesome anyways. Ghouls! Ancient, redneck ghouls, talking about condiments and how to prepare a dead guy in a way that humans don't notice that what they eat is in fact a rotting corpse. And the commercial-induced trauma... Gods, my whole life consisted of waiting for this scene, for it is awesome and brilliant, ironic and... well, it just illustrates the relationship between the two main characters - Stash and Hub - perfectly. But judge for yourself.

The dialogues are just brilliant. And I mean "brilliant". This short is an example for how to make a perfect (although a few sickos might disagree with that) movie. I know, I might repeat myself now, but... brilliant.
Someone who eats corpses, talking about humanity's tendency to depict its food in an anthropomorphic fashion, is so surreal... so surreal that it hits you straight in the face and you suddenly realise the reality behind that statement.

Holy crap, I love this movie. And I love it so fucking much... ghouls, condiments, corpses, cannibalism, implied murder... Just fucking perfect. Fans of ironic/sarcastic horror with a light note to it but yet in the mood of the old 50ies flicks we all enjoyed so much - get it. Cannibal Flesh Riot! will make you happy.

And who the fuck came up with strawberry-banana-vinegrette?!

11/10 anthropomorphic radishes drowning in condiments

__________________________________________________
This is the first version of the review; I wrote it in a state of not being exactly sober, but I think it conveys my feelings about this movie pretty good. Enjoy... or not.

I'm usually not someone who starts off a review with positive things.

But "Cannibal Flesh Riot!" is...
... more than just perfect.

I have seen a lot of low-budget B-Movies. I have seen a lot of low-budget Z-Movies - hell, I was playing a part in one of the worst Z-Movies ever made (and I'm not proud of that).

Cannibal Flesh Riot! is what the medium of film has been created for. And I mean that.

This short by Gris Grimly (if you don't know him, check him out - his artwork is outstanding) is what I'd call the perfect movie. And I mean PERFECT.

Basically, the story follows two ghouls on their way through a cemetary to get their fresh, dead human meat. And frankly, I've never seen a better movie than "Cannibal Flesh Riot!".
The dialogues are more than just brilliant. Gris Grimly (I only knew him for his awesome children's books) really managed to create something that can't be described by the word "awesome" here - "Cannibal Flesh Riot!" is the best movie I've ever seen, and I've seen a lot of great movies.

First, the dialogues are pure genius. I mean, you have to realise what scenery you are watching in order to understand how freaking awesome it is:
Two ghouls - people who eat corpses, and ONLY eat corpses - run around a cemetary, talking about how condiments improve the taste of a dead human - or talking about how a commercial for condiments scarred one of the characters for life.
What you have to realise is that one of the protagonists - a guy who eats people! - got traumatised by seeing a commercial about condiments. He is a cannibal, and he is just digging up a corpse - but he is worried about humanity's tendency to depict their food like people. We also get dialogues about condiments in general, and the question how the fuck someone came up with strawberry-banana-vinegrette.

Some people said that the dialogue of the two protagonists, Stash and Hub, is tiresome and not interesting.
I have to disagree.
The movie "Cannibal Flesh Riot!" is one of the best movies I've ever seen. The protagonists, Stash and Hub, are persons we can feel for, persons we can sympathise with.

Dustin Loreque, who plays Hub, the not exactly too intelligent Ghoul, does a great job of portraying the character. His acting is just perfect - he is the abused, non-important "sidekick" to the character of Stash (played by David Backhaus). Hub, the hunchback, is the petty, stupid character - a hunchback who isn't able to understand the real world. Nonetheless, he has an insight to how reality works that is just perfect. He might appear stupid, but he thinks about stuff that just makes your mind stop because it's so true.

On to Stash (who is, as already mentioned above, played by David Backhaus).
The character is just perfect. Backhaus manages to portray the vision of Gris Grimly perfectly. And, frankly, he's sexy as fuck. But that might just be me and my skewed sense of attractiveness in males. Uhm. Yes.
The make-up is perfect, and Backhaus portrays the character in an impossibly perfect way. His movements are more than just perfect, his voice just fits the character so very well... I think that my fan-girliness is something that can't be denied (well, obviously...).
Backhaus plays the character of Stash with such a perfection... it is nearly unbelievable. Both Backhaus and Loreque are perfect for the roles of Stash and Hub, and, frankly, I've never seen two actors having that kind of utterly, amazingly perfect coordination.
The two actors are the protagonists of the movie... but besides that, they dominate the movie in a very positive way.
Usually, I am a fan of action-driven movies... but, hell, trust me when I say this:

Film has been created for "Cannibal Flesh Riot!".

The dialogues are brilliant - utterly, absolutely brilliant. The story is intriguing, and... fuck, the story is just brilliant.

And the DVD is perfect as well. I've bought quite a lot of so-called "limited edition"-DVDs... and none of them EVER got me excited.
But this DVD did.

Holy crap, I'm trying to make this movie sound as amazing and awesome as it is, but I seem to be unable to do so.
Please: Ghouls are awesome. Ghouls are people, too. Think of the ghouls.

Because ghouls are more than just awesome.

And this is not exactly an objective review of the movie. This is where I used the words "awesome" and "perfect" for a hideously lot of times. Believe me, I tried to redo it. But, somehow, those two words sneak in all the time. And I can't even talk to friends about the movie without going off the "awesome" and "perfect" tangent. I guess it just shows how much I am in love with this particular movie.

Try to get it somewhere. Don't download it. Downloading it would be an insult to Gris Grimly and his vision (I am tempted to capitalise "His" now because of the sheer awesomeness of the thing). It is available for a good prize at madcreator.com, Gris Grimly's homepage... and trust me, you won't regret it. Unless you are that particular breed of person who doesn't like horror shorts and brilliant humour.

I give it 11 out of 10 radishes drowned in condiments.

Really. It's perfect.