Posted on 16 February 2009 by ShepRamsey

Shep here, with the rundown of the notable new DVD releases, including my pick of the litter, The Midnight Meat Train. All titles hit stores this Tuesday, February 17!

First up, High School Musical 3: Senior Year. Unless these kids wind up getting held back, because they were wasting time dancing in the hallways, I think we should be safe. I mean, Disney wouldn’t actually make a College Musical, would they? …Would they??

Ridley Scott’s Body of Lies with Leonardo DiCaprio and Russell Crowe hits stores. I didn’t see this one. Don’t know if anyone else did either. If you’d like to change that, hit up your local Hollywood Video on Tuesday. On the other hand, if you’d like it to stay the same…just stay at home.

If you’d like to get up-to-date on your Oscar nominees, but are discoraged by the fact that so few are playing near you, rest easy, because Clint Eastwood’s Changeling starring Oscar-nominee (and previous winner) Angelina Jolie wanders into our home video lives.

Larry Charles and Bill Maher’s religion documentary, Religulous comes out. If you’d like to see Maher and the director of Borat test your faith, one cleverly edited overzealous religious fanatic at a time, then by all means, hop on board. (Oh hell, I’ll watch it.)

Clark Gregg’s terminally underwhelming adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s 2001 novel, Choke about a guy who chokes himself in restaurants to gain the sympathy (and money) of those brave enough to step up and save him. A movie that should have been really good (particularly due to the excellent casting choice of Sam Rockwell in the lead role), is too straight-forward for the satire to sink in at all.

Flash of Genius, starring Greg Kinnear as the guy who invented the windshield wiper and took on the Ford Motor Company after they tried to steal the idea. For those of you looking for a nice little inspirational flick, this ought to do the trick.

And here’s some of the rest: the spectacularly shitty Quarantine, the I-sorta-wish-I’d-seen-it-and-now’s-my-chance How to Lose Friends and Alienate People, the direct-to-video sequel Feast III: The Happy Finish, another direct-to-video sequel, Still Waiting… (directed by Jeff Balis, a fun fact for Project Greenlight fans), and the Criterion Collection releases David Lean’s 1954 adaptation of Hobson’s Choice, starring Charles Laughton.

Some titles hitting blu-Ray this week are High School Musical 3, Body of Lies, Quarantine, Richard Attenborough’s 1982 Best Picture-winner, Gandhi, and Mel Gibson’s classicly controversial Jesus flick The Passion of the Christ.

However, friends, if there’s just one of this week’s new releases that you check out, make it The Midnight Meat Train, a terrific little underseen (and quite poorly marketed) horror film directed by Ryuhei Kitamura and starring Bradley Cooper (the douchey fiance in Wedding Crashers), Leslie Bibb (the reporter in Iron Man), and the one and only Vinnie Jones as the mysterious guy chopping up unsuspecting subway patrons as if they were meat! Sure, that doesn’t exactly make the film sound scintillating, but the film, based on one of Clive Barker’s Books of Blood stories, is an expertly crafted and excellent example of how modern horror doesn’t always have to suck.

Cooper plays an aspiring photographer who, when trying to capture the raw and real horror of life in a subway station, notices something fishy about the big creepy guy in the suit with the large suitcase. He investigates and terror ensues. It’s a movie that gets weirder and weirder as it goes along and has the balls to not let you know what the hell’s going on until after its climax, pulling off the big reveal with a few well-chosen shots and sparse expository dialogue. Though the gruesome effects can look a little dopey at times, it’s always creative and fun.

It’s so hard to find a horror movie that has some good ol’ fashioned thrills and a cool story and never feels the need to talk down to the audience. The Midnight Meat Train is that movie. It’ll be out on DVD and blu-Ray on Tuesday. Check this one out!

Buy Midnight Meat Train HERE.