When I spoke with Clive 'Books of Blood' Barker recently, he relayed a funny story to me about meeting what he calls "A little old lady" – at least 75 years old, this woman had sought Barker out to tell him that although she was not familiar with his work, but "I think you have the best horror movie title, ever!"

Barker agrees. "It's a no-holds-barred scare show." He’s got complete faith in Japanese director Ryuhei Kitamura in bringing the bloody vision to the big screen. Based on a short story of his, the movie takes place in a fictional city in which a serial killer is at play.

The killer is played by Vinnie Jones, whom most remember from the Guy Richie action flicks. Playing a unconscionable slayer in Midnight Meat Train will be a complete change for him.

The day horror.com was solo on the set, he wasn't. Which is a good thing. He's scary! Instead, we talked to Bradley Cooper (who plays Jones' nemesis), and Kitamura. Although it is very early on in the production, the smart, affable director is eager to share his thoughts and predictions.

Staci Layne Wilson/Horror.com:  So, you’re basically in your first week shooting… but what’s your feeling on how things are going?

Ryuhei Kitamura:  I’m fairly happy, so happy.

Q:  And is this your first time shooting in America?

Kitamura:  Yes.

Q:  So what do you have to say about it so far? 

Kitamura:  [Laughs]  It’s not much different, and you know… I always made my movies my style so, you know, I was kind of very outsider in Japan anyway.  Nobody came out like that in Japanese film industry.  I just started making movies with my friends when I was about seventeen, and I made this independent movie called Verses and after that I’ve been making Toho studio big movie in Japan but still I was with my crew and you know, not much difference.

Q:  But nobody takes their shoes off before they come on set here [laughtr].  I was at Toho last year, so I know. That’s different.

Kitamura:  Yeah. Well, I’ve made like eight movies in the last five years. Not all like movies, you know, but like TV series, and music videos, concert documentaries, video games, and TV commercials.  I kind of did everything.  When I started doing Godzilla: The Final Wars, I kind of felt that Godzilla was the biggest movie in the day and the budget was big — you know, it’s a Godzilla movie right?  So when I was doing that I felt that now, it’s time for me to move on so I was with my agent and my managers and I was looking for the right project to do.  The first project in America and I’d been doing that for you know like two or three years, but most of the scripts I got were just typical Hollywood B teenage slasher horror cheap action movie or whatever and I didn’t want to ruin my career with that even though it’s a Hollywood movie, right?

Q:  And the fact that it’s not a re-make, is a plus.

Kitamura:  Yes, yes.  I’m not interested in doing the same thing again.  It was very hard to find the right project so I kind of passed with my old agent and manager.  I kind of fired everybody last summer without thinking anything you know.  Some people told me, You have your agent and manager, you should be with them and it’s not easy to get a Hollywood picture. But I just felt like, I don’t know, I didn’t feel good.  So I fired my agent and everybody then without any plan and then after three days I was at the San Diego Comic-Con because we were releasing my Japanese movie called Azumi so I went to the San Diego Comic-Con and at a party I met Samuel Jackson.  I found out that he was a big fan of Azumi and Verses and he introduced me to his manager and she is my manager now.

So I found this great manager, but I had to go back to Japan, I had to go back but I’ll be back in a month. After a month I came back because I  wanted to go to an Asia concert, the eighties band, Asia.  I’m a big eighties music fan.  I came back here to see Asia, but I called my manager and said “Come on!  I had to go to Las Vegas to see Asia but tomorrow I’ll be back so I’ll give you Monday to Friday so please set up a meeting and this is the first meeting they set up.”

Q:  This movie is based on Clive Barker story; had you been familiar with Clive’s work prior to this?

Kitamura:  Yes, it was twenty years ago, 1987, that he first published Clive Barker's Books of Blood in Japan, and on the day it came out I read it.  Meat Train, of course, was the first one, right?  I was so impressed; I still have the twenty-year-old book.  That’s why I went into a lecture and the producer, “You know we’re doing the Midnight Meat Train.  You know that?”  Well, I know that.  Come on, that book is too great!  I don’t believe that you have a good script.  I don’t want to mess this up.  It’s too great a book.  I don’t want to do that.  He said, “At least take a look at the script.  Come back on Wednesday,” it was Monday, “and just let me know if you like it or not.”  So I read it and I was surprised that it was a good script.  So Wednesday I went back and I said, “I like it!”  On Friday they called me up and said, “Let’s do it.”  That was it.  On Saturday I went back to Japan to start packing my house.

Q:  Now, the cinematic narrative I understand is expanded because it was only a short story, so you’ve added characters? New death scenes, or… what can horror fans expect from the film version?

Kitamura:  They can expect much more than the book.  We have more gore and stuff.

Q:  Now how can you out-gore Clive Barker?

Kitamura:  'Cause since developing the script, me and Clive had lots of conversation. He has lots of great ideas and then I start to figure out how we’re going to make it work.  Sometimes we fight but still I have a very good relation with Clive.  It gives me the confidence that I’m on the right track.

Q:  And of Mahogany… right track.  I get it!  [laughter – we are on a subway / railroad track set / location] Ok, so Mahogany - does he still like shave the victims and drain their blood and all that?  Is it similar?

Kitamura:  Yes, yes.

Q:  How did you choose the actor Vinnie Jones for that character?  It’s a little different from anything he’s played before.

Kitamura:  I don’t know but I just ah… Vinnie had a chance to read the script you know.  It was out of nowhere.  I never expected it.  The producers were thinking someone like no one kind of actor.  I’d been fighting, discussing with the producers come on you know, like some big guy but still nobody you know.  That kind of scary character you’ve seen. 

It's like High Tension, you know.  Those are the actors, you don’t know who they are, but they are very scary.  Like in Hostel and all.  Come on, somebody else is doing it so why are we doing the same thing again?  I was having the idea that we should cast someone who was a star kind of you know.  The producer kind of “Well we don’t know, maybe it will take away… from the movie you know if someone famous comes out, that’s like “What?”  I always wanted to do that.  Then, Vinnie had a chance to read the script and I heard that Vinnie Jones is kind of interested in it.

Q:  Well, how was he cast?  Were you familiar with his work before or was he someone the producer suggested?

Kitamura:  Yes, he knew from general meetings [about the movie] and we were all surprised that he read the script.

Q:  What about Bradley Cooper? Were you familiar with his work?

Kitamura:  Yeah, and Gary told me that Cooper came in and he said that he’d read the script and… he'd read the script!  I said “Wow! That’s great!”  I like his face and then I looked into the web site and his fans make his you know, Bradley Cooper dot com or whatever and it had his picture and it was exactly the image I had in my mind as Leon, so I told Gary, he’s perfect you know.  Let’s go for it.  We were very lucky that we had him.

Q:   You were saying that the character is very dark and sort of tortured and you know feels like he’s obsessed with this killer.  Bradley himself seems very funny and friendly…

Kitamura:  That’s what I like!

Q:  So how did you see that in him?

 [start here]

Kitamura:  I'm just saying that I'm one hundred percent fine with him. Him and Leslie Bibb and Vinnie Jones, they ’re all great you know.  Before we started shooting this movie, me and Bradley, Leslie, the three of us went to eat very expensive steak.  We start shooting a meat movie next week so you know, so let’s go eat meat.  We ate this just a very expensive Japanese kiroshima beef steaks the three of us.  We were having fun.  Not just like director and actor and actress you know as a person If think we are having a great relationship.  We did rehearsal, Leslie and Bradley, I mean for a week.  After three days we were just doing something else, just talking you know? Cause I knew that, you know.  I told them that I know that you can do that you know?  It's more important that we dig more into our relationship than doing this line again and again and again.  That's how I did with my actors in Japan and I'm trying to do the same thing.  Bradley is such a nice guy and Leslie is a wonderful girl and I'm very happy with them.

Q:  Nobody has given you any trouble yet?

Kitamura:  No not yet.  I was expecting more in a Hollywood style and attitude you know.  Hollywood producer or whatever but I don't have any problem.

Q:  So far, so good. Now, on the death scenes, are you showing the deaths or are you showing only the after death, the bodies after what Mahogany has done to them?

Kitamura: Of course I'm showing the killing of Mahogany.  Lots of killing.  Before and after, whatever, yeah!

Q:  How disgusting is it?  Because obviously we're talking about... we've got a meat packing plant and that's disgusting in itself…

Kitamura:  This movie has both.  Very shocking and gore and disgusting, it has everything.  That's why I liked the script and I wrote some more you know, crazy insane killing sequence.  Me and my DP Jonathan, he's such a great guy and we .. you know I'm a big horror fan.  I grew up watching those great eighty's, seventy's horror movies so I know exactly what I want to... what the fans want.  As a horror fan, I just you know for the last ten, fifteen, twenty years, I haven't seen any good horror movies you know.  I mean, some of them they just show the gore stuff but it has no soul, no story, no character and I don't like that.  Back in the eighty's there were good movies like you know, Evil Dead always Halloween, always Hellraiser you know. Those were the films, not just a bunch of killing right?  Not just pulp corn killing and killing and killing non stop.  It's ok, I love watching that kind of movie but I'm not interested in doing that myself.  That's what I liked about this script is that it has story and it has great character and it has a beautiful love story between Bradley Cooper and Leslie Bibb which is not in the original plot.  The original book is very simple right?  That part is the last thirty minutes of this movie.  The fans, half of the movie is exactly what they expect from the original book.  That's what we have on the last thirty minutes but much more than that.  We have more blood, more guts, more creatures, whatever.  I know because I'm a big horror fan but I'm not just a horror fan, I watch... I grew up watching all kind of movies and I directed not only... This is actually my first horror movie.  In Japan I did action movies, some comedy, a little bit scary science fiction.  I did everything but not horror movies because I haven't seen any good horror movies for the last fifteen or twenty years and I haven't met this great horror project yet.  So what I'm trying to do you know is something over the top.  I'm very determined to do that.  I know what horror fans... Most of the horror fans, they don't care about the story right, they care about the gory stuff. 

Q:  Hm, the movies that you remember for a long time have great characters, like The Shining, or you know, Seven.

Kitamura:  But these Yank horror geek's you know, they don't care.  They want to see the gore stuff, right, so I will provide that.  I'm not doing this safety rated R, safety rated PG-13 movie.  This is a hard rated R movie so I will provide that.

Q:  Have you seen some of the films that Lions Gate has put out that have really tipped the ratings board scale here like The Devils Rejects, or Saw or Hosel?  What do you think of movies like that?

Kitamura:  Yeah, I enjoyed watching that kind of movie, but this one is... some part of this movie is much more gory than those movies.

Q:  Now your character Mahogany — he has a very interesting way of dressing and he's got his bag — how much of that was in the original story and how much of it is things that you wanted to give him yourself?

Kitamura:  From day one I met Clive, and I'd been telling him, "We have to create another new horror hero."  'Cause there is none right?  I'm a big figure collector myself but I've been buying the same thing you know?  Freddie Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, Pinhead, and that's it!  That's it!  No other movie in the past twenty years reached that level of an icon right?  That's why I ended up buying twenty Pinheads [collector's items].  I told the producer and I told Clive, that we're going to have to create something.  That's why I had a discussion with my costume designer Chris Lawrence, and with Vinnie himself.  We ended up with this 50s kind of cool suit and super-cool bag.  He has this iconic hammer.  We designed it.  They showed me a bunch of hammers and none of them were... it has to be... A weapon is, you know it should be very iconic right?  Like Freddie's claw, Jason's machete, whatever.  So we kind of designed a super cool hammer and he kills with that.  Very scary, oh so cool. So this Mahogany is... of course he's very creepy, very weird, very scary but at the same time he's very super cool.  It's a very thin line because if he goes too cool, it doesn't work. But so far he's fucking scary, yeah, and visually he's great.

Q:  Does he have a lot of dialogue or does he... 'cause sometimes if you let a killer talk too much...

Kitamura:  That's what I don't like.  He only says one word in this movie, that's it.  So I'm very happy that Vinnie chose this project to do that.  He's just a pure killing machine and he says only one word and still Vinnie says yes, so we are really lucky to have him.

Q:  You are going to be shooting with some green screen and things like that?  Have you done that yet? 

Kitamura:  We will, but not too much.  That's the one thing I've been telling my producers from day one is you know this film has to have this 80s feel.  The 80s was the golden age of the horror movies and you know we're kind of losing that.  So what I wanted to bring it back to, that kind of energy.

Q:  Now, how much are you going to be in the editing room?  Are you going to be doing a lot of the post production yourself to determine the final look and feel of the film?

Kitamura:  Yeah, but I have a good editor and a good VPN so I don't think that it's going to be a problem.  I was surprised, that's a big difference you know.  They gave me ah, ten weeks till I finish the directors cut.  I told them that means about eight weeks vacation.  They said "What!"  No, no.  I will...  Even though the biggest effects are playing in a movie like Godzilla I finish everything in two weeks.  What a waste of time you know, come on!  I don't need it.

I'm very determined, you know.  This is my first American movie and I think there's no other director who's more determined than me to make a great movie cause if I fuck up this movie then I can just fly back to Japan right?  That's not my plan.  My plan is to keep on making movies here.

Q:  What kind? More horror?

Kitamura:  I think that this is going to be my first and the last horror movie.  At least now I feel that way.  That's the way I do everything.  This script has lots of mysterious suspense, mythology, it's not just you know a serial killer or snakes on the plane.  There's lots of mystery and something more than that at the end.  It's good that I can try all kinds of horror...

Q:  So just make this your one horror masterpiece?

Kitamura: Yeah, and so after that I don't think I want to do horror movies at least for a couple of years.  I think I'm kind of famous for my... all those you know, crazy movie fans, because of my crazy action.  So after this movie, I think I gotta go back to action movies.  Right now I'm developing my own project, my own script.  I'm working on some of them that are not my works, remakes, but it's going to be totally different.  I just hate doing that same thing again and again.  So my future, I'm working on one remake project right now, but it's going to be something [great].  This movie... one thing I know for sure is that this is going to be the best horror movie in the last fifteen years.  At least that's my plan.  That's my plan, my goal, me and my producer.

Q:  Any plans for remakes?

Kitamura:  No good.  I watched a couple of those movies and they look the same, you know.  Same kind of color, same kind of MTV kind of...

Q:  Yes, a lot of quick editing and...

Kitamura:  Yeah, quick editing, MTV kind of look.

Q:  Or the shaky cam.

Kitamura:  That's the one thing we're not doing in this movie.  We're doing the color and camera run and everything is totally different from what I've done before and what is Hollywood horror movies done before.

Q:  What is your visual inspiration?  Are there any films that you could cite that yours might be drawing from?

Kitamura:  Not that much, because I hate copying somebody's work.  I hate copying myself.  I told my production man, I was like, "I want to do something like, more colorful." Because after Seven, everybody tried to do that.  You know bleach bypass and all of this you know, washed out.  You know, it's cool but it's the same thing right?  So what we're doing here is more.  Something like that but there was more color.  Not that much like Dario Argento but something like that, you know.  It was really more stylish and more visual.

We are trying on every single shot, we're trying to do something different.  Last week I was lowering the crane and the producers, one of the producers told me that "You never go for the simple shot right."  I said, "Come on!  You can ask that in the million dollar directors?"  Yeah, you know, I didn't travel all over the... from the other side of the world to do that you know?

Q:  So are you guys using like a lot of fancy shot? I saw that you had an overhead crane, for something someone else might have just had a static lock-down shot.

Kitamura:  See, that was a very simple scene right?  The guy walks up, and walks by.  Even then I would do that.  We do that.  My DP is the guy who does that.  He's the guy who did The Omen remake.

Q:  Yeah, that was beautifully shot.

Kitamura: The movie wasn't good but it looked beautiful.  He's been around in the industry, so he knows what looks cool. What's great about Jonathan is that he understands movies, he understands emotion, he understands what I like.  This is my first Hollywood movie and my producer has showed me lots of DP's reels and he's the only one I wanted. The only one.

Q:  Really?

Kitamura:  Yes, I looked at like you know 30 or 40 reels and I said, "I want to meet this guy."  We talked like for an hour and after that I told the producer "I don't have to see any more." I'm very good at doing that.  I knew that he was the one.  We've been doing this shoot for only a week, but so far he's been great.

Q:  It sounds like you're very decisive, so you're probably not shooting a lot of extra coverage. 

Kitamura:  The producer was, just this morning, he said, "Are you sure about the coverage?"  So I said, "Oh yeah!"  That's true, Hollywood producers only cares about the coverage.  Come on!  I still feel like there's too much coverage.  I don't need that much you know.  I'm not a director who keeps doing the takes, and takes, and takes.

Q:  Yeah, like David Fincher.  I heard that he does about 50 takes!

Kitamura:  Yeah, well he deserves that.  He's a great director so it's OK, but that's not my style.  I decide everything very quickly.  That's why I think the producers are happy, I hope so.

= = =

BONUS

Short Interview with DP Jonathan Sela

Q:  How closely are you two working with your director; he seems very much like he's involved in every aspect?

Sela:  Very close.  Well we just do a lot of homework in pre-production, you know.  Just check a lot of references and talked about all the different lighting styles and colors.

Q:  Well, he was saying that he really doesn't want to duplicate his own work or anybody else's work.  That's kind of impossible now isn't it?  I mean, how are you  getting a fresh angle on this?

Sela:  That's a hard question.  I agree; today you have so many movies, and it's hard to be original I think, just generally speaking, but you constantly try to challenge yourself and find new ways of doing certain things.  I mean I wouldn't say it's... you know I think it's, instead of using one reference you try to find a lot of different ones and see how you create a whole new world that makes sense to you.  Do you know what I mean?

Q:  Yeah, and besides, don't you think though that a moviegoer is comforted by something that they're used to, that they've seem before?

Sela: Yes, but I think it's a bad thing too because you want too, it's like you want to refresh peoples eyes and make them eager to see different things.  I think that's as much has a lot of following I think we're trying to do a lot of different things with the way we're lighting it and the camera, you know minimizing the coverage and just finding interesting angles that tell a story we're not necessarily doing the typical things which we do a lot, I can't be specific 'cause there's so many different situations but I think that's what me and him tried really hard to do is just try to avoid "Oh, there's somebody coming around the corner and it's scary so like you'd set up the typical chase."

Q:  I think you did a really gorgeous job on The Omen where you kind of enhanced the colors and so on. Are you always changing your style with every show or do you like to stick to something that's distinctive as 'you'?

Sela:  A little bit. I just try to tell a different story and when this whole thing… you as an artist, you always go back  to what you're comfortable with or what you know how to do best  So in order that that's kind of... that's the easy way, and I think that to try to make it different is the hard way cause you try to do stuff you haven't done yet.  It's always like "That doesn't look like something I would do." But that's where I think it's interesting. I think that's where we're a little different, just trying... just basically challenging ourselves every time to do something that you're not used to doing.  As for this to The Omen?  Um, it's two different stories. 

It's a classic re-make versus something more original.  Two different directors, totally two different styles, you know.  With The Omen there would be four or five cameras all day long running, so many different angles.  Over here it's a lot more clear  traffic in a way.  We just go.

Q:  So you're not working with story boards or anything?

Sela:  Just for the digital effect sequences.  Otherwise, no — it's just us getting the shot placed and using the... Well that's what I said, we did a lot of work in the prep.  Just going through all the revisions and starting with seeing exactly how to  make every sequence look like that.

 [end]