Movies
Director Ryûhei Kitamura Reflects on Lionsgate’s Burial of ‘Midnight Meat Train’
Almost exactly ten years ago, Japanese filmmaker Ryûhei Kitamura‘s first American film, an adaptation of Clive Barker’s short story The Midnight Meat Train for Lionsgate, was getting ready to hit theaters amid a whole lot of buzz. Suddenly, the release was delayed, the film ultimately dumped onto a very small number of screens.
Clive Barker himself was outspoken about the burial at the time, offering the following: “Though I mourn the fact that The Midnight Meat Train was never given its chance in theaters, it’s a beautifully stylish, scary movie, and it isn’t going anywhere. People will find it, and whether they find it in midnight shows or they find it on DVD, they’ll find it.”
Barker was right, as horror fans did eventually discover (and embrace) Kitamura’s brutal Midnight Meat Train. In a new chat with Mick Garris on the podcast Post Mortem, Kitamura reflects on what happened ten years ago, which he describes as a dark time.
“It was very heartbreaking because it was my first American movie. And I was very proud of the movie,” Kitamura told Garris. “And the last I heard was, ya know, they got so excited and they even set a release date. I still remember… 2008… May 16th. That’s a very good day. Hot summer day. They were confident with the movie. And they released the trailer… I still remember, when I went to Arclight Cinema to see Rambo 4, the trailer was there. I was like, ‘WOW.’ And then… all this craziness happens.”
Kitamura, whose new movie Downrange just hit Shudder streaming, continued, “I know exactly what happened but I don’t feel like I want to speak about it. It’s just… [an] ego thing. It’s as simple as… the Lionsgate people, when I was making the movie… and the time when it came to release… was a different [group of people].”
Essentially, Kitamura explains that producer Peter Block being ousted from Lionsgate was Midnight Meat Train‘s downfall. Block had been hardcore behind the film, and the people who took over insisted on scrubbing his projects off their own slate.
“There’s another big reason, but I don’t really want to [get into it]. It was the biggest terrorist attack to my life. Worst time of my career… emotionally and financially.“
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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