Everyone wins with NO ONE LIVES

Now that I’m only three days away from my trek to Toronto for Midnight Madness courtesy of Kari’s Scaries, I’m getting wound up about some of the more mysterious titles on the schedule. Among these is No One Lives, which the program describes as an “exuberantly gory thriller about a clan of backwoods road bandits whose latest victims are far less helpless than they seem.”

So, wait, does Midnight Madness offer valet parking or not? I'm going with "not."

Sounds fun, right? It gets better: No One Lives is the latest from director Ryuhei Kitamura, a filmmaker who has yet to get the attention he deserves on this side of the pond. Kitamura has an impressive filmography under his belt, including Versus, Azumi and Godzilla: Final Wars, but it’s his 2008 gorefest The Midnight Meat Train that really put him on my radar.

Based on a Clive Barker short story of the same name, Train has never gotten the kudos it deserves. That’s too bad – it’s a gorgeously designed, slickly directed and extremely entertaining flick. It goes off the rails a bit at the end (if you’ve read the story, you know the climax is nearly impossible to film), but it's loaded with so much style and crazy gore that I can’t imagine why any horror fan wouldn’t dig it. The goofier stuff, including a dude whose eyeballs fly out of his skull when the killer whacks him on the noggin with a mallet, is CG, but it absolutely works in the context of the movie. (In the interest of full disclosure, I have a thing for horror films involving trains. Horror Express? Terror Train? Creep? Yes, please. And thanks to 1973's Raw Meat, everyone knows that subterranean mutant cannibals live in abandoned subway tunnels, which just adds to the appeal.)

Check out Kitamura’s official reel below, then keep on scrolling for a batshit, totally NSFW helping of grue from The Midnight Meat Train.


Ryuhei Kitamura Works from Kazuki Hirata on Vimeo.



A trailer for No One Lives has yet to hit the web and we've only seen a few images, but you can see why I'm stoked nonetheless.

NO ONE LIVES screening times:
Sat., Sept. 8, 11:59PM, RYERSON
Mon., Sept. 10, 9:45PM, CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 7
Fri., Sept. 14, 4:45PM, CINEPLEX YONGE & DUNDAS 6