The Midnight Meat Train centers on Leon (Bradley Cooper), a photographer who is trying to break into the art world in New York City. Advised by an art dealer (Brooke Shields) that his work needs to be darker, Bradley decides to head to the subways late at night. During one of his trips, he manages to stop a gang of thugs from assaulting a woman, who later turns up dead. Heading back to the scene of the crime, Bradley sees a mysterious man (Vinnie Jones) skulking the subways, and begins to investigate further. What he turns up ends up to be a trail of blood leading all the way back to when the subways were first built.

To be honest, I wasn't too excited to check out The Midnight Meat Train, since most of the exported Japanese directors coming to Hollywood nowadays seem to just churn out the same old safe but boring PG-13 "I see dead people" ghost stories. This is about as far as you could get from that. Kitamura's style still snugly fits in with his and other Japanese directors' work, especially in the sense of using the sets and locations to the fullest advantage. The mise-en-scene contained here, from the gritty city streets, to the almost too-clean interior of the subway cars, lends a great atmosphere, placing a fine feeling of dread into the viewer, as they begin to fear what will be coming around the next corner.

However, unlike the fairly squeaky-clean treatment most J-horror gets once it hits western shores, The Midnight Meat Train doesn't hesitate to throw out a bit of the claret when called for. Actually, scratch that -- it's more than a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to call this a gore-fest, but let's just say there are certain scenes (notably one where Vinnie "cleans" one of his victims) that you probably shouldn't watch if you're very squeamish or perhaps eating greasy Ramen noodles. Sure, a lot of the blood and guts was probably thrown in for shock value. But, overall, it works, in that the gory scenes manage to tread that line between shock and outright "torture porn" very well.

If there is fault to be found with The Midnight Meat Train, it's with the ending. Following the template of Barker's short story, it tries too hard to explain the motivations of Vinnie Jones' character, and comes off as convoluted and a bit ridiculous. Sometimes, the boogeyman just needs to be the boogeyman -- that monster who could be hiding in any shadow, with no explanation as to when and where they'll strike. The film-makers should have been a little more confident in the audience's ability to fill in the blanks about the story, which no about would have resulted in a better last impression than The Midnight Meat Train's slightly silly conclusion leaves viewers with.

The story has nothing much to offer IMO, it's just another implausible slasher plot with a hint of supernatural mystery. That could well be your cup of tea--in which case, more power to ya'--but it's not mine. Whatever.

Where this film truly succeeds is in the visuals. And as far as I can tell, this is due primarily to two people:

1. Cinematographer Jonathan Sela makes almost every scene in this film look like a masterpiece photo or painting. At first it's a bit of a sensory overload--all the overt shadows and artificially tinted scenes--but once you adjust to it a bit, you can start to really appreciate that each shot is just visually amazing. You could pause the film at any random frame from start to finish and sell prints of that frame to art collectors. Color me impressed.

2. Director Ryuhei Kitamura. I have enjoyed his films in the past, though perhaps never to the point of rabid obsession that his many fans seem to feel. However, his creativity and confidence in shooting this film is undeniable. There are some really "out there" kills in this film, that are filmed in some really "out there" ways, but in this day and age when we've all "been there, done that" cinematically, I appreciated Kitamura's having the balls to push things forward a bit, even at the risk of going too far. And just for the record, I think he walked that line perfectly here. I'm the first to admit that the CGI in this film is not quite up to task, lots of the blood and other elaborate camera effects are obviously not real. But I'm willing to overlook that since the creativity behind them was so very impressive and fun and fresh.

This film is no masterpiece, mainly because the story simply becomes too outlandish and fantastical for its own good by the end of the film (and, again, your opinion will vary depending on your tastes). But the film works both because of its envelope-pushing visuals, and its incredibly gory and plentiful kills. Check your brain at the door and bask in the orgasmic aesthetics on display here.