On Movies and Keeping One's Mouth Shut

Here's a piece of advice for all you movie aficionados out there. If you fancy yourself the type of person whose movie recommendations are asked for, or even coveted by friends and family, it is imperative that you keep the more, shall we say esoteric, movie choices to yourself.

Say, for example, you see a movie called The Midnight Meat Train and you think to yourself, "how can I not want to watch a movie called The Midnight Meat Train?" Well, watch it, certainly. Enjoy it, but do not, under any circumstances, tell others that you spent your time watching The Midnight Meat Train. If you do, not only will those that used to respect your movie tastes no longer do so, but you will lose all rights to complain about bad movies afterwards. In fact, forever onward from the point where you divulge your watching of The Midnight Meat Train, any complaint you make about a movie will be matched with "What do you care, you watched The Midnight Meat Train. "

Now, this same rule does not apply to horror movie fans, as their tastes appear to be much, much broader, hence The Midnight Meat Train, but maybe to them, saying that you enjoyed Sideways trashes your credibility. I have no idea. All I know is that I told my coworkers that I watched The Midnight Meat Train and the mocking hasn't stopped since.

To my credit, I didn't pay to watch this movie, other than time spent watching it, and I spent said time working out, so it's not like I put aside a special block of time to watch this movie. Plus, and I can't stress this enough, it's called The Midnight Meat Train. I can't see how that doesn't spark curiosity in even the most closed minded of individuals.

For the record, the movie was just ok. Shocking, I know. It was based on a Clive Barker story of the same name, which I read after the watching the movie. The story was ok, and at less than 30 pages, wasn't able to sustain a 90 minute movie. Instead, they decided to fill the movie with things that didn't make sense and were never addressed. Horror movies need to be either scary as hell, like The Descent or creepy as hell, like The Devil's Backbone. This movie was just weird and gory. It didn't help that the killer was played by Vinnie Jones, of Snatch and Eurotrip fame, and as soon as I saw him, I laughed and said "It's Bulletproof Tony!" Better luck next time, Midnight Meat Train.

As a correlary to our rule, the same people who mock you about watching The Midnight Meat Train will be more than happy to discuss Onechanbara once they know that it's about a woman in a bikini who fights zombies with a samurai sword. They may even want to watch it. Go figure.