Stag Night

I never intended to watch Stag night – not this one anyway. I read on IMDb about a British film that was more or less a wannabe Shaun of the Dead entitled 'Stag Night of the Dead'. It was supposed to be reasonably amusing and with the action transpiring on a Stag Night you can't help but guess that a certain number of strippers might've been involved… I wasn't actively hunting SNotD but as things tend to do the title lodged itself in my subconscious. A few weeks later at the video shop I spy the cover for Stag Night and my mind does a quick double-take; was that supposed to be good and if so why?, as it was on the weekly shelf I threw caution to the wind and slapped down the $1 required to borrow Stag Night for an entire 7 day period.

Stag Night has no 'of the dead', no laughs and only a brief moment of nudity… But it isn't terrible.

Here's why; Predictably enough the movie is set during a Stag Night. Not a glamorous or large scale affair, just four guys having some beers in the city. When we meet the four guys they are being kicked out of a strip club and discussing whether to call it a night or kick on.

Kicking on wins.

Shortly after they are aboard the subway heading to the next destination with two of the strippers from the club who are done for the night. After some obnoxiousness from one of the quartet leads to mace being released, a door is forced open (somehow) and all 6 exit the train in a dark section of subway tunnel at 4 AM.

Let's fast forward only a few minutes: SUBWAY TUNNEL CANNIBALS!!! Yep it's that kinda film. The ensuing hour has the usual chaos, stupid decisions and unlikely events as the 6 mostly unlikable anti-heroes stumble about in the dark.

There is liberal use of F-Bombs even well before the Rob Zombie looking cannibals show up to slice and dice. The film has one good kill scene that is more entertaining than it is inexplicable – and it is quite inexplicable – and an hour of running from bad guys in a film most aptly described as Mimic Vs Wrong Turn.

I didn't hate Stag Night. It's just too reminiscent of so many other better movies to stand out from the pack. I like the fact that they played it straight and never winked to camera or made things too unbelievable… what am I saying? SUBWAY TUNNEL CANNIBALS!!! I'd like that last remark stricken from the record.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. If you want lotsa gore and minimal thought all wrapped up in a familiar package Stag Night isn't bad, how good Stag Night of the Dead is remains to be seen.

One last thing: How many movies feature monsters/killers or creatures that have apparently been prying their deadly trade for some time without anyone ever realising. Fine I can believe that they have a 100% kill rate once they target their prey, as unrealistic as that is. But no-one ever seems to ask about the missing or looks too hard into things.

And when cops do they are invariably killed… but who looks for them? (I know, I know. Just a movie.)

In New York, on the bachelor party of Mike (Kip Parude), he goes with his troublemaker brother Tony (Breckin Meyer) and his friends Carl (Scott Adkins) and Joe (Karl Geary) to a strip club; however Tony gets in a fight with other costumers and the group is expelled by the bouncers. Tony convinces Mike and his friends to take the subway and go to another bar; in the wagon, they see the striper Michelle (Sarah Barrand) and her friend Brita (Vinessa Shaw), and Carl makes a corresponded move to Michelle. When Tony flirts with Brita, she becomes upset and uses a spray against him. The train stops in a traffic light in an abandoned station, and Brita forces the door and leaves the wagon to breath, followed by the others. However the signal opens and they are left behind in the station, Mike, Tony, Joe and Brita decide to walk through the tunnel to the next station and seek help for Carl and Michelle that prefer to stay alone dating in the station. When they reach the next station, they witness a trio of brutal homeless men killing a guard and they run through the tunnel trying to escape from the deranged murderers in the beginning of their nightmarish night.

The gore "Stag Night" is a rip-off of "Creep" with Franka Potente, i.e., a claustrophobic plot with people trapped in the subway tunnels. The acting and make-up are excellent, but the camera work is terrible in the action scenes. The flawed screenplay uses many clichés of the genre and Brita is indeed the only character that takes reasonable attitudes in a distressed situation of panic. This movie is not totally bad and entertains, but could be better and better. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Fuga Sobre Trilhos" ("Run on the Rails")

There are some lines at the beginning of the movie (after the "initial" shock scene that is), that try to convince that this movie has a real background. Of course as with many other horror movies, this does not stay in our reality and has quite some major flaws in it's story telling. You just get enough background information on some of the guys (their relationship to each other), to know who is who. Beyond that there is nothing to really distinguish them (apart from the character that Breckin Meyers portrays, but never really achieves anything with, except from his first scenes).

Actually, if you didn't know Breckin Meyer (which could be the case), you might be excused to not even really notice him and be completely irritated by his action(s) later as the movie progresses.

Storytelling and character aren't really the backbones of this movie, but it has some nice/decent horror moments and some pretty good gore effects. Unfortunately some scenes are edited/shot as if the cameraman/editor had been under "influence". I'm not a big fan of the "shake the camera" and it will look frightening theory. Others might be, not me though.

Decent, but nothing you really need to watch, unless you are into this sort of genre pictures (and even then there are so many other movies out there)

Think "Wrong Turn" set in subterranean Manhattan.

"Stag Night" follows a group of friends on a subway home from a bachelor party in NYC. After exiting their train too early at an abandoned station, the group along with two female strippers from the party look for a means of exit. Unfortunately for them, they've walked off the train and straight into the stomping grounds of a clan of subterranean cannibals. It's gonna be a long night.

"Stag Night" works with the cannibal killer formula that's been done for the past three decades, but, like the 1972 film "Raw Meat" (also known as "Death Line" in the UK), this one is set in abandoned subway tunnels. We saw a similar scenario in the 2004 flick "Creep" with Franka Potente, where she struggles to survive against a mad cannibal in London's subways. There's something eerie about being underground in the first place because it adds an increased sense of helplessness; you've literally got the weight of the earth against you, and means of escape are few and far between. Even creepier is the fact that these abandoned subway tunnels and platforms do actually exist far beneath the streets of New York and London, and the notion that people could be inhabiting these dark, old places is one that is extremely eerie.

This film makes ample use of its setting, which is ultimately the hook, line and sinker for this one. Transplant this story to the woods, and you've got "Wrong Turn". Transplant it to a nuclear California desert, and you've got "The Hills Have Eyes". It's familiar, yes, but who said familiar cannot be fun? This is an extremely violent film, so modern gorehounds will get their money's worth here. For those who prefer slowburn suspense, this one may be a pass. I like both ends of the spectrum, and this one delivers on action. I've read some complaints about the cinematography in the film and the shaky camera-work, which are understandable complaints, but I will say that it does give the film a visceral texture. I could, however, have down without the corny slow-motion shots during scenes of high drama though.

The production quality is actually really great, and the subterranean atmosphere is well-used. The villains in the film are also surprisingly scary looking, and, where films like the aforementioned "Raw Meat" gave a humanity to the villains, this film rather presents them as outright murderous animals. Acting-wise, there's a solid cast here that make up the core characters. Kip Pardue and Breckin Meyer are both pleasures to watch, and Vinessa Shaw (you may recognize her from "The Hills Have Eyes" remake or Kubrick's "Eyes Wide Shut"— or, if you're a '90s kid, Disney's "Hocus Pocus") plays a sassy Columbia student by day and stripper by night. There is some particularly funny dialogue between her and Meyer, that is, until things get serious.

I felt the ending of the film was abrupt and the last-second surprise was a "c'mon" moment for me, but I can forgive it since I was glued to the screen for the 80 minutes prior. Standout scene: the group's first sighting of the killers as they dismember a security guard, and the train track beheading.

Overall, "Stag Night" is all in good fun. It's not high art, but I tuned into it right at the beginning around 1am, and I was taken by it enough that I finished it to the end. Genre fans will likely enjoy it, while most others will not. As far as indie horror goes, this one is fairly high up there. 6/10.

Already seen many times, predictable and without any imagination. The only reason it got 3 out of 10 from me is because of the pretty good acting and few scary scenes which I got to mention as a true horror fan. So, if you are the one, you would maybe like to see how is director of this film mixing movies "Creep" and "Hills have eyes" while trying to take the best out of them but without success in pretty cheep and stereotypic way. Also, most of the scenes were made in the dark but director insists on their speed which is pretty irritating as you see only blurry shadows instead of the picture. All in all, pretty bad and pretty generous rate from my side.