Editorials
[Butcher Block] All Aboard Carnage-driven ‘The Midnight Meat Train’
Butcher Block is a weekly series celebrating horror’s most extreme films and the minds behind them. Dedicated to graphic gore and splatter, each week will explore the dark, the disturbed, and the depraved in horror, and the blood and guts involved. For the films that use special effects of gore as an art form, and the fans that revel in the carnage, this series is for you.
If there’s one thing you can count on in a Ryuhei Kitamura horror film, it’s the copious amount of bloodshed and gore. With Kitamura, gore is most definitely an artform. Based on Clive Barker’s 1984 short story of the same name, The Midnight Meat Train follows a photographer obsessed with dark subject matter getting in over his head when he discovers a serial killer that butchers unsuspecting night commuters in grisly fashion.
In other words, there’s probably not many movies as aptly titled as this one. There’s a lot of human meat, blood, brain matter, and limbs being carved up on the late-night subway train in this horror movie. Bradley Cooper stars as Leon Kaufman, the photographer that stumbles upon and then becomes obsessed with the ruthless serial killer. His concerned girlfriend Maya, a character not in the original short, is played by Leslie Bibb. But the real reason to watch this movie, aside from the gore, is the perpetually intimidating Vinnie Jones as killer Mahogany. Jones only utters one word of dialogue in the entire movie, but he’s such a strong physical presence that you’ll hardly notice. Or care. Also look for horror vet Ted Raimi in an eye-popping death scene.
Those unfamiliar with Barker’s original short story will be caught off guard behind the reveal of Mahogany’s motive. A gory cat and mouse thriller between photographer and serial killer doesn’t usually lead to a larger conspiracy theory involving sacrificial offerings to underground dwellers, but leave it to Barker, and screenwriter Jeff Buhler (The Prodigy, 2019’s Pet Sematary, Grudge) to go there. Along with it a not so happy ending, depending on your perspective.
Despite the carnage and mayhem unleashed at the hands of the butcher Mahogany, the kill sequences and gore took a lot of careful planning by Kitamura. Storyboard artist Todd Harris drew endless storyboards based on Kitamura’s direction and the script to meticulously plot out every shot. Though there were some digital effects, most of The Mightnight Meat Train’s gore was done practically. That meant a minimum of 3 gallons of blood needing to be cleaned up from the set daily; some days used at least 25 gallons worth of fake blood. But, the most impressive feat was the insane amount of prosthetics needed for this production.
Limbs, severed heads, and full-sized human bodies to be dangled like butcher meat or mounded in piles.
The extensive prosthetic work was done by Matthew Mungle (CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Bram Stoker’s Dracula) and his team from his co-founded special makeup effects company W.M. Creations, Inc. Mungle, and his special makeup effects company specialize in aging and prosthetic makeup, one of the most challenging aspects of special makeup effects, and delivers some eerily lifelike human bits and pieces for The Midnight Meat Train. Look to the woman getting decapitated on the train, or Leon losing his tongue for great examples.
Barker, who served as producer on the film as well as provided paintings for set dressing, was pleased with the final film. Unfortunately, the movie was dumped onto brief limited theatrical release, showing only on roughly 100 screens, before DVD release shortly after. The move infuriated Barker, who notoriously blamed ego behind the scenes at Lionsgate for the less than ideal release. Luckily movies usually have a long shelf life and an ability to amass a following years or decades later, and the graphic reputation of The Midnight Meat Train along with Barker’s seal of approval means that we can board this bloody train whenever we’d like.
The penultimate season of Tales from the Crypt (1989–1996) aired its first three episodes on October 31, so it’s understandable that at least one of those three stories is set on Halloween.
Sandwiched between “Let the Punishment Fit the Crime” (Russell Mulcahy, Ron Finley) and “Whirlpool” (Mick Garris, A. L. Katz & Gilbert Adler) is the most severe episode of the bunch. Maybe the entire series? William Malone and Dick Beebe’s “Only Skin Deep” traded the show’s typical sense of fun for startling amounts of bleakness and kink.
“Only Skin Deep” is, apart from the Crypt Keeper’s intro and outro, noticeably unfunny. There are no considerable attempts at making the viewer laugh. Come to think of it, if those bookends had been replaced, and there was more of a sci-fi element in the story, HBO could have easily squeezed this tale into that successor anthology, Perversions of Science (1997). In Crypt, though, “Only Skin Deep” is much too grim for an audience that had become accustomed to campiness and levity.
What makes “Only Skin Deep” feel dark, among other things, is its protagonist. Showing up to a Halloween party where he’s not welcome, and where his former girlfriend (Diane DiLasco) is attending, Carl Schlag (Peter Onorati) first comes across as your standard bitter ex. You soon realize it’s much worse than that, once Carl threatens Linda (“You know, silly me, thinking I gave you what you deserved. If I’d have done that, I’d have killed you”). Now, I haven’t forgotten that Tales from the Crypt was teeming with vile men who did women harm. Yet Carl’s brand of misogynistic menace hits differently—it borders on being too realistic for this kind of series.
Mike Vosburg’s EC-style comic cover for “Only Skin Deep”, as seen in the Tales from the Crypt episode.
Despite donning a party mask for much of the episode, Carl can’t ever mask his true nature. The invitation did say “come as you are”, after all. That inability to change and be better, however, is why Carl ends up in such a karmic predicament. His outburst of anger at the party attracts the attention of one loner partygoer named Molly (Sherrie Rose, who was also in Season Four’s “On a Deadman’s Chest”). Her bone-white, featureless “mask” and body-bag costume don’t initially register as too strange, especially on a night like this. But at a party chock-full of colorful, cartoonish, and lighthearted ensembles, it does look out of place.
Darkness attracts darkness as Carl ditches the party and accompanies the mysterious Molly to her place. Which, by the way, should have been an immediate red flag. But perhaps she’s so hot, he doesn’t seem to mind the serial killer aesthetic. Resembling a warehouse that has been converted into living spaces, but never then decorated to remove the cold, industrial look, Molly’s home (or lair) is as gloomy as this whole episode feels. It’s like the set of a grungy music video, albeit a tad cleaner. The environments in a typical Crypt episode tend to be small, overfilled, and broken-in. Warm, regardless of any weird goings-on. All that empty space in Molly’s hovel, on the other hand, elicits a creepy feeling that Carl was unwise to ignore.
Tales from the Crypt featured more sex than it didn’t, but hands down, “Only Skin Deep” boasts the steamiest scene in the show’s history. Pushing it over the line, in addition to Onorati showing bare buns and the camera never turning down one of his pelvic thrusts, is the twisted dirty talk. Carl stays in the moment, whereas Molly unleashes charged lines like “the hurt, the anger, give it to me” and “take it out on my flesh like you want to”. It’s all quite kinky, as well as tied into the story’s theme of pain.
How else “Only Skin Deep” differs from other episodes is its twists. Or rather, its lack thereof. Nothing comes as a great surprise here, particularly because the deuteragonist’s ulterior motives are so obvious. By no means is Molly a wolf in sheep’s clothing; her face is a fright mask, she practically reeks of death, and she lives in what can best be described as a serial killer’s hideout. That last-act revelation of Molly’s mask really being her face is also nothing shocking. Cleverness is certainly not this episode’s strength.
A page from “…Only Skin Deep!”, as seen in EC Comics’ Tales from the Crypt.
While “Only Skin Deep” isn’t the most universally loved episode of Tales from the Crypt, it’s an interesting preview of William Malone’s future as a director. Most notably, he went on to helm House on Haunted Hill (1999) and FeardotCom (2002), the former of which was co-written by Dick Beebe, this episode’s writer. Dark Castle Entertainment, that genre house founded by Crypt producers Joel Silver, Robert Zemeckis, and Gilbert Adler, was instrumental in bringing out Malone’s gruesome, over-the-top vision in House on Haunted Hill. However, FeardotCom and Malone’s Masters of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child”, are the most stylistically compatible with “Only Skin Deep”.
As one might guess, this episode is nothing like its source material. The “…Only Skin Deep!” found in the pages of EC Comics is set during Mardi Gras in New Orleans, and save for its last couple of pages, is pretty sweet in nature. There, a man named Herbert is enamored with a woman he met five years prior to the present-day story. Every year, he has come down to Mardi Gras to see Suzanne, who’s always dressed as a hag-faced witch. Well, this time, Herbert plans on popping the question and marrying someone who is, for the most part, a total stranger. Suzanne accepts his proposal, but with one condition: they stay in costume until they’re officially hitched. You can probably see where this is going…
Once they are married, Suzanne remains incognito, even when she and Herbert have consummated their vows. A semi-predictive nightmare then rattles Herbert; he dreamt that Suzanne’s real face was as wizened as her mask. Finally, in his haste to find out the truth, Herbert winds up killing his new wife. Faceless and well on her way to bleeding out, the dying Suzanne manages to say she never wore a mask.
For more traditional EC-style ghastliness, your best bet is reading the comic. It’s wickedly sad. For something less conventional, as far as Tales from the Crypt goes, the role-reversing adaptation is worth watching. It’s not the best this show had to offer, although Malone’s visual style, plus the sexual abandon, does set the episode apart. If nothing else, “Only Skin Deep” leaves an impression that, even years later, shows no signs of fading.
Season Six of Tales from the Crypt can be streamed on Shudder, starting on June 5.
Tales from Tales from the Crypt celebrates the show’s Shudder premiere by singling out one episode from each season. So don’t even think about changing that dial, boys and ghouls. More spot-“frights” are to come.
Carl discovers Molly’s collection of human ‘masks’ in the Tales from the Crypt episode, “Only Skin Deep”.
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