The Midnight Meat Train (2008)

To end my favorite month, with my favorite holiday, is The Midnight Meat Train. The movie was awesome. Another movie were I couldn't predict the ending! I love indie flicks! I found the plot summary for the movie on IMDb:

The film opens as a well dressed, barrel chested man stalks the late-night passengers of a subway train. He assaults and kills several people with a meat hammer, and a butcher's hook. He dispatches his prey wordlessly, and with an uncannily unnatural strength. He wears a ring on his finger, adorned with eight stars.

We are then introduced to Leon, a vegan photographer who heads into the city's subway system at night to take photographs. He is criticized constantly by other photographers for fleeing danger before shooting a full reel. One night, in a decision to break this trend, he saves a woman from a gang that is abusing her. The next day, he discovers this girl has gone missing. Leon is intrigued by the mystery, and begins to investigate newsreels about similar disappearances. His investigation leads him to a butcher named Mahogany, who he suspects has been killing subway passengers for as long as a hundred years.

Leon attempts to turn some of the photos he has taken of Mahogany in to the police, but they refuse to believe him, and instead cast suspicion on his own motives in photographing the victims. Leon's involvement quickly turns into a dark obsession, upsetting his waitress girlfriend Maya, who is as disbelieving of his story as the police chief. Leon takes matters into his own hands, entering the subway train at midnight, only to witness a shocking bloodbath, as the butcher kills several passengers, then hangs them on meat hooks. Passing out on the subway floor, he awakes the next morning in a slaughterhouse with strange markings carved into his chest.

A concerned Maya and her friend Jurgis, a short-order cook, begin to examine the photos Leon has been taking of Mahogany, leading them to the killer's apartment. After breaking and entering the butcher's home, Jurgis is captured, and brutally killed. Maya goes to the police, But finds that they are as unwilling to consider her story, as they were of Leon's. It is at this point that we begin to discover that the police may be involved in the cover-up of Mahogany's crimes. A police official directs the misguided Maya to a trip on the midnight train. Leon, unaware of Maya's involvement, finally decides to put an end to the butcher's crimes, and heads to the hidden subway entrance in the slaughterhouse, arming himself with the a butcher's apron, and several slaughterhouse knives.

Leon enters the train as Mahogany has completed his nightly massacre, and has cornered a helpless Maya. Leon attacks the murderer with a knife, beginning a climactic battle between the photographer and the superhuman butcher. They fight in between the swinging human meat, Leon's knives against Mahogany's meat hammer, and human body parts are ripped, thrown, and used as weapons in the shower of epic gore. Finally, Mahogany is thrown out of the train by Leon, but not long before it hits its final stop. The train has entered an underground cavern, filled with skulls and decomposing bodies.

Mahogany, in a battered and bleeding state, returns, barely alive, from beneath the train, and engages in a death struggle with Leon, who finishes the job at last by impaling the psychotic butcher's skull on a blade. Mahogany grins in his dying throes, pronouncing the single word "Welcome!"

With the butcher's death, the conductor of the train enters the car, advising Leon and Maya to "Please step away from the meat." With these words, the true purpose of the underground station is revealed, as horrible reptilian creatures enter the car, consuming the meat to which they have been delivered. The conductor explains to Leon that the creatures have always existed below the city, and that the butcher's job was to keep them satisfied by feeding them every night. The conductor then forces Leon to watch as he kills Maya with one of the butcher's knives. When he is done, he picks up Leon, and with the same supernatural strength as the deceased butcher, rips out Leon's tongue, throwing him to the ground. He tells Leon that, having killed the butcher, he must take his place.

In the final scene, the police chief hands the train schedule to the new butcher, who wears a ring with eight stars. The killer walks onto the midnight train, and turns his head to reveal that he is Leon, ready to go on his nightly slaughter.

The movie starts out with a guy on a train by himself, slowly falling asleep. And then boom! He falls into a puddle of blood. This is how "The Midnight Meat Train" starts out. It's kind of like a roller coaster ride. Action and suspense, then smoothness.  The visual graphics are great. Very up close and personal with the killings. In one scene, you can actually see a mans eye being knocked out of his scull in slow motion. They also have a shot were you can see through the eyes of the person being killed. This can kind of give you an idea of  what the person sees and feels. They also did an awesome job in showing the fight scene with a 360 degree shoot. Going around in circles showing each angle and each action that is taking place in that camera shot. And the way the movie ended was awesome and weird. The music was erie but went well with the movie.

The killer is a bit of a creeper. He goes to work everyday in a suite... and he's a butcher. He never talks through the entire movie, until the end when he says "Welcome"(creepy indeed). He just give you these looks that sends chills up your spine. Everynight around midnight, he boards a special train(the conductor is in on it). When the train is in motion, whatever person is in the car with him will be killed. Doesn't matter if it's one or three; there dead. He approuches each new victim with a meat hammer and aims for the facial area. One to two blows will kill the person. With this killer, he's really scary. He creeps up behind you. And the scary part is that you don't even have to turn around to know that he's there.

You have the typical girlfriend who helps out her boyfriend/husband acheive his dream, but then regrets doing so because the boyfriend/husband becomes obsessed with the dream; or something related to the dream. And of course she falls when she is running away from the killer. *sigh* God I hate when they do that. It makes them seem so helpless when there not. She misses when she has a point blank shot. How do you do that? Instead of trying to get away when the killer has her, she just stares at him and scream "Nooooo!" And hold out her hands as if that was going to stop him.

You have the typical boyfriend/husband who becomes so obsessed with his work that he doesn't know how fucked he is until it's to late. Then he follows the creeper like a weirdo and wonder why he wanted to kill him. Then he went head to head with the killer; him holding a cutting knife and the killer holding his meat hammer like actual was going to win that fight.

Great movie, although it does kind of leave you a little confused; because it doesn't really tell you why the monsters are underground. But otherwise, good movie. 

Found the whole movie for those who want to watch:

Feed (2005)

Feed. An awesome movie. I found the plot summary for the movie on tla:

Intensely grotesque and shocking as hell, Feed is a heavyweight thrill ride through the depths of depravity. A veteran of cyberporn investigations, Australian cop Philip Jackson is no stranger to the dangerous side of sexual fetishes. He may have found his sickest case yet when he discovers a sinister side to an American website devoted to fat-admiring men and obese women called “feeders” and “gainers.” Could the man behind it all be force-feeding missing women to death? Tense, dark and deeply disturbing, director Brett Leonard (The Lawnmower Man, Virtuosity) takes the crime-thriller genre to a twisted, gut-wrenching new level.

The whole movie was awesome. It took crazy to another level (though I thought that was imposable). The movie was about "feeders" and "gainers"( a feeder is a person who feeds another person. A feedee or gainer may be characterized as an individual choosing to gain weight with the aid of a feeder) and how the killer(the feeder) would take women (gainers) and feed them until they were around 600 pounds. Then he would take the fat of the previous women, that he killed, and feed it to the current women he has now; until they eventually die. I love indie flicks. They always dance to there own beat and never really follow any rules.

Here's the trailer:

Flesh is the law II

Next popular cannibal is the famous Armin Meiwes. This one, I found interesting because the description of Brandes death was in a movie I saw called Feed.

 Armin Meiwes (born December 1, 1961) is a German man who achieved international notoriety for killing and eating a voluntary victim he had found via the Internet. After Meiwes and the victim jointly attempted to eat the victim's severed penis, Meiwes killed his victim and proceeded to eat a large amount of his flesh. Because of his deeds, Meiwes is also known as the "Rotenburg Cannibal" or "Der Metzgermeister" (Master Butcher).

Looking for a willing victim, Meiwes posted an advertisement at a website, The Cannibal Cafe, whose disclaimer mentions the distinction between reality and fantasy. Meiwes's post

stated that he was "looking for a well-built 18 to 30-year-old to be slaughtered and then consumed". Bernd Jürgen Brandes responded to the advertisement. Bernd Jürgen Brandes was known for his interest in crossdressing. Many other people responded to the advertisement, but many backed out and none were forced to do anything they didn't want to do by Meiwes. As is known from a videotape the two made when they met on December 25, 2001 in Meiwes' home in the small village of Roteburg, Meiwes amputated Brandes' penis and the two men attempted to eat the penis together before Brandes was killed. Brandes had insisted that Meiwes attempt to bite his penis off. This did not work, so Meiwes used a knife. Brandes apparently tried to eat some of his own penis raw, but could not because it was too tough and, as he put it, "chewy". Meiwes then sautéed the penis in a pan with salt, pepper, and garlic, but by then it was too burned to be consumed. According to journalists who saw the video (which has not been made public), Brandes may already have been too weakened from blood loss to actually eat any of his penis. Meiwes read a Star Trek book for three hours whilst his voluntary victim was bleeding to death in the bath. Meiwes apparently gave him large quantities of alcohol and pain killers, 30 sleeping pills and a bottle of schnapps, finally, he kissed him once and killed him in a room that he had built in his house for this purpose, The Slaughter Room. After stabbing Brandes to death in the throat, he hung the body on a meathook and tore hunks of flesh from it; he even tried to grind the bones to use as flour. The whole scene was recorded on the two-hour video tape. Meiwes ate the body over the next 10 months, storing body parts in his freezer under pizza boxes and consuming up to 20 kg of the flesh.

Meiwes was arrested in December 2002, after a man in Innsbruck phoned the police after seeing new advertisements for victims and details about the killing on the Internet. Investigators searched his home and found body parts and the videotaped killing.On January 30, 2004, Meiwes was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. The case attracted considerable media attention and led to a debate over whether Meiwes could be convicted at all, given that Bernd Jürgen Brandes had voluntarily and knowingly participated in the act; there were also complications as cannibalism itself was not illegal in Germany at the time.Meiwes has admitted what he has done, and expressed regret for his actions. He added he wanted to write a book of his life story with the aim of deterring anyone who wants to follow his steps. Websites dedicated to Meiwes have appeared, with people advertising for willing victims. "They should go for treatment, so it doesn't escalate like it did with me," said Meiwes. He believes there are about 800 "cannibals" in Germany.

In April 2005, a German court ordered a retrial after prosecutors appealed his sentence. They believed he should have been convicted of murder, not manslaughter, and given a life sentence. Among the questions courts answered is whether Brandes agreed to his killing, and whether he was legally capable of doing so at the moment of killing, taking into account his apparent mental problems as well as his significant intake of alcohol and other drugs. Other aspects of the retrial determined whether Meiwes killed to satiate his own desires (in particular sexual desires), and not because he was asked to, which Meiwes has repeatedly rejected during testimony. At his retrial a psychologist stated that Meiwes could reoffend and still "had fantasies about devouring the flesh of young people." On 10 May 2006, a court in Frankfurt convicted Meiwes of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.

Since entering prison, Meiwes has become a vegetarian and has joined a prisoners' group favoring Green Party politics.

All info from Wikipedia

Flesh is the law

Cannibal-  1. a person who eats human flesh, esp. for magical or religious purposes, as among certain tribal peoples.
2. any animal that eats its own kind.
I've decided to try something new in my horror section. Besides looking at movies(which supprisingly I no longer have time for, but am finding a way to fit in), I've decided to also look up serial killers and the crazies. First up: Cannibals.


Richard Trenton Chase (May 23, 1950 – December 26, 1980) was an American serial killer who killed, raped, and dismembered six people in the span of a month in California. He was nicknamed "The Vampire of Sacramento" because he drank his victims' blood and cannibalized their remains. when police raided his home, they found his fridge stocked with body parts because he needed fresh blood. He did this as part of a delusion that he needed to prevent Nazis from turning his blood into powder via poison theyhad planted beneath his soap dish.


Issei Sagawa (born on June 11, 1949-) While studying in Paris in 1981, Sagawa shot a classmate in his apartment, carved her up, and ate pieces of her. He was arrested, deemed insane, and institutionalized. In the 20-plus years since, Sagawa's returned to Japan and has become a little celebraty cannibal, appearing on talk shows (and in pornos), writing novels, even penned a
weekly column for a tabloid. He is often invited as a guest speaker and commentator. He admits to still having fantasies about cannibalism, but says he never wants to realize them again.

The Exorcism of Emily Rose (2005)

To start off my favorite month of the year is the most well known story of Emily Rose. The Exorcism of Emily Rose is actually based off a true story. But that doesn't mean it makes any less a horror flick. I actually stayed up all night just to watch this movie. And now that I'm done... I'm just a little more afraid of the dark and 3 am. I found the synopsis for the movie on IMDb:

In an extremely rare decision, the Catholic Church officially recognized the demonic possession of the 19 year-old college freshman. Told in flashbacks, The Exorcism of Emily Rose chronicles the haunting trial of the priest accused of negligence resulting in the death of the young girl who is believed to be possessed and the lawyer who takes on the task of defending him.

Lawyer Erin Bruner (Laura Linney) takes on the church and the state when she fights in defense of a priest, Father Richard Moore (Tom Wilkinson) who performed an exorcism on a young woman, Emily Rose (Jennifer Carpenter). Bruner must battle the state lawyer as well as her own loneliness, as she realizes that her career so far has not fulfilled her. She takes the case, albeit reluctantly, because she believes it will elevate her to senior partner at her law firm. The priest agrees to let her defend him only if he is allowed to tell Emily's story.

The trial begins with the calling of several medical experts by the prosecutor, Ethan Thomas (Campbell Scott). One expert testifies that Emily was suffering from both epilepsy and psychosis. The defense contests that she may have actually been possessed, though Bruner is careful never to say that in so many words intially. Indeed Bruner explains that Emily was suffering from something that neither medicine nor psychology could explain, and that Father Moore as well as her family realized this and tried to help in another way. Several flashbacks show how this began. Alone in her dorm room one night, at 3:00 AM, she smells a strange burning smell from the hallway. When she checks on it, she sees the door open and shut by itself several times. When she goes back to her room, she sees a jar of pencils and pens move by itself. Additionally, her covers roll themselves down, and a great weight seems to press down on her, a force which also proceeds to choke her and seemingly to possess her momentarily. Through these episodes she wonders if they are really happening or if it is just a hallucination she is experiencing. She suffers more "visions", is hospitalized, and diagnosed with epilepsy. She is given anti-seizure medications which she claims do not work. Her visions continue, as do her severe bodily contortions.

She leaves school and returns to live with her parents. She and her parents become convinced she is not epileptic or mentally ill but is possessed by demons. They ask for their local parish priest to be called in to perform an exorcism, and the Church agrees. The prosecution counters that all this could be explained by a combination of epilepsy (the contortions) and psychosis (the visions).

Meanwhile, Bruner begins to experience strange occurrences in her apartment at 3:00 AM, including strange smells and sounds. Father Moore warns her that she may be targeted by demons for possibly exposing them. Later in the film Father Moore explains that 3:00 AM is the "witching hour" which evil spirits use to mock the Holy Trinity. Significantly, it is the opposite of 3:00 PM, traditionally taken to be the hour at which Jesus died.

Seeing that the prosecution is putting up a seemingly solid medical case, Bruner decides to try to show that Emily may have actually been possessed. She calls in an anthropologist, Dr. Sadira Adani, to testify about various cultures' beliefs about spiritual possession.

A medical doctor present during the exorcism comes forward to reveal an audio tape made during the rite. The priest is then called to the stand to testify. The tape is played and the movie then flashes back to the exorcism. It is performed on Halloween night because Father Moore believes it might be easier to draw out the demons on that night. The priest, Emily's boyfriend, and her father are in the room. Emily is tied to the bed. The priest uses holy water and various words from the Rituale Romanum. She speaks in tongues, including Latin, German, Ancient Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Several cats run into the room, jumping on the priest and knocking him down. Emily breaks her ties and jumps out the window, running into the barn. They follow her. Inside the barn, they are subjected to more supernatural phenomena such as unnatural gusts of wind and demonic screams and voices. The demon inside Emily refuses to name itself after repeated demands from the presiding Father but finally reveals contemptuously that there are not one but six demons. They go on to identify themselves in dramatic fashion, naming themselves one after another in dual voices from Emily. They identify themselves as the demons that possessed Cain, Nero, and Judas Iscariot and one of the Legion. Beyond that two demons name themselves directly as Belial, and "Lucifer, the devil in the flesh."

The film returns to the court room. The priest says that after this, Emily refused another exorcism but also refused to take her anti-psychotic medication, having accepted her fate. She died a few weeks later. The prosecutor contends that her speaking in tongues can be explained by her having gone through Catholic Catechism, in which she could have learned the ancient languages, and that she had studied German in high school. The priest admits that it might be possible that she could have learned these languages in school.

Bruner then wants to call the doctor as a witness, but he does not show. She walks outside and sees him on the street. He says he can no longer testify, but he does believe in demons. Before he can explain he is hit by a car and killed. Later that night Bruner's boss tells her she has ruined the whole trial and that if she recalls the priest to the stand she will be fired.

Nevertheless, Bruner calls the priest back to the stand the next day. He reads a letter that Emily wrote him before she died. In the letter Emily describes another vision she had, the morning after the exorcism. She walks out of the house and sees the Virgin Mary, who tells her that although the demons will not leave her, she can leave her body and end her suffering. However, the apparition goes on to say, if she returns to her body she will help to prove to the world that God and the Devil are real. She chooses to return. She concludes the letter by saying "People say that God is dead, but how can they think that if I show them the Devil?" She then receives stigmata, which the priest believes is a sign of God's love for her, but the prosecution counters that she could have received the stigmata wounds from a barbed wire fence on her property.

Father Moore is ultimately found guilty; however, on a recommendation from the jury, the judge agrees to a sentence of time served. In modern American legal practice, juries are only allowed to answer questions specifically directed to them, though sometimes they are asked separately to sentence defendants. The jury's recommendation in this fictional case does not follow American practice.

Bruner is offered a partnership at her firm for saving Father Moore from extended jail time, but she refuses and in fact quits. She goes with Father Moore to Emily's grave, where he has put a quote (which she recited to him the day before she died) from the second chapter twelfth verse of Philippians on her grave: "work out your own salvation with fear and trembling".

At first it started off slow. But once it started to go, you were hooked. For the first time in years, I wasn't able to predict the story line(though now that I think about it, thats really sad on Hollywoods part). The Exorcism of Emily Rose is one movie that you will remember. It will leave you thinking...is there really demons out there?