Stag Night of the Dead

How many DTV zombie films are out there these days? There's must be thousands, all running the spectrum from really good (Apocalypse of the Dead) to the awful (Tokyo Zombie) - meaning that viewers will have to do their homework before even buying a modern zombie film. This one, a zombie comedy, is good enough to warrant one viewing at least, as it low budget really shows, but you've got to acknowledge the effort made. And it did actually make me laugh once or twice.

Five guys and a stripper are out for a stag do when they head off to an army barracks to indulge in a bit of Zomball, which is like paintball only with zombies and stun guns. You've got your innocent groom, best man and fanny rat, tourette's suffering other guy, and a few others. Looks like not all is as it seems at the barracks as anybody who gets munched by the zombies just gets added to the zombie army, or something. It's best not to think about who does what in a film like this.

As you might expect, the zombies get let loose and start chowing down on soldiers and stag party alike. It's a zombie film so I shouldn't need to get down to the plot, eh? You've got talking zombies (which actually kind of works here), bits of gore, bits of humour and not bad characterisation (plus a couple of twists) - We ain't looking for Ingmar Bergman in a zombie film, just good action, gore, and maybe scares. Stag Night of the Dead falls kind of into the 'good' category for me. Low budget, but they did try their hardest.

Zombie comedies, what can we say? I think when we watch them (and with most of them) we think "well it's no Shaun of the Dead". I know not everybody likes Shaun of the Dead, but for those people who do then when a zombie comedy movie comes out it's almost an automatic comparison, is this movie as good as Shaun of the Dead? Well anyways, with Stag Night of the Dead I may compare it to Shaun in some ways but I'm not going to be unfair, this is an independent movie that didn't have the same budget as Shaun, so let's see what it's got. Straight from the outset you can tell this is going to be a fun movie. It's your typical group of "lads" out on a stag night looking for a good time. Turns out the best man has set up something special for the day and the group are going to take part in "Zomball" which is basically shooting zombies with guns that look like they are out of Stargate but shoot like they are out of Ghostbusters (whatever you do, don't cross the streams…). Along with the Stag party they also appear to have taken the stripper with them who adds a nice edge to the laddish behaviour as she sympathises with the groom's predicament of not really being into the whole stag night scenario at that point. Zomball is a simple game for them to play; all they have to do is shoot the zombies and follow the rules of the game. These rules are pretty much stay together, keep your eyes open for recharge points for the guns and never humiliate a zombie. Now, as fans of horror we all know what happens when rules have been defined right? Yes, ever one of the rules are broken and the zombies end up annoyed and out for some human flesh. As the zombies take over the army base where all this is taken place, how will the stag party (and stripper) survive? Well you'll have to watch it and find out won't you? I find the acting in these types of movies something that often lets them down. I have to say though in this movie I was pleasantly surprised. Yeah, there are some actors who seemed to go over the top with their character or who struggled to really come across as believable but for the most part they did a good job. The annoying characters had me wanting them to die way too quickly, and thankfully the most annoying of them all was the first to die. Strangely enough though when he became a zombie he actually became more tolerable and more of an interesting character which was a pleasant surprise. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised with this movie. When a movie is made on a budget that's not "Hollywood" size there seems to be a lot of decisions that have to be made, namely how much of it do they blow on the SFX. In this movie they seem to have decided on a more minimalistic approach on the gore and where CGI is used it's actually used with a purpose, not like you're average Hollywood horror that throws so much CGI at us it's like our eyes have taken so much of it in they're going to pop. There are obvious moments when CGI is used but it adds to the scene, it's there for a purpose which is what I like to see. Is it as good as Shaun of the Dead? no, and does that matter? not a bit.

If the mysterious plague sweeping the nation wasn't bad enough, Dean is still going ahead with his doomed wedding tomorrow morning.

That leaves him with a choice.

Pick up the button holes and chocolate fountain as instructed by bridezilla Elaine, or go with five mates (and a stripper) to play 'Zomball' at a top secret military compound where you get to shoot zombies with huge stun guns.

Disobeying the golden rule of Zomball ('never never humiliate a zombie') the stags face overwhelming odds from the massed undead and each stag is hunted down. The truth about Zomball is finally revealed and suddenly the mother-in-law is the least of Dean's problem.

And the beginning of ours. There has been a rash of these brit zombie films of late. They are all directed the same. The production values are OK but they are hard to watch because they aren't very good. Count this in the numbers.

A stag party travels to an air-force base where they take part in Zomball, an extreme activity where they get to shoot real zombies, the unfortunate victims of a recent pandemic.

Boozy blokes, tarty strippers, and the living dead. A surefire combination for a hugely entertaining comedy horror movie, or so one would think. But although the title Stag Night of the Dead conjures up all kinds of wild possibilities for sexy, bloody fun, somehow the people behind this film fail on almost every level, making yet another hugely embarrassing addition to the UK zombie genre.

Writer/director Neil Jones aims for lads mag style humour, but thanks to an awful script, a lousy cast, and very little discernible talent behind the camera, his film is about as funny as a kick in the nuts (which incidentally is one of the film's supposedly hilarious gags!). When one of the characters is called Georgina Romero, the level of inventiveness is clearly not very high.

As for the nudity and gore one might expect from such a film, the splatter is extremely limited, thanks to the characters being armed with electric stun guns instead of regular firepower (allowing for some really woeful visual effects), and the bare flesh is limited to one pair of zombie breasts and some tempting cleavage from busty stripper Candy (Sophie Lovell Anderson). All in all, a huge disappointment.

Zombies, strippers, this could have been low budget fun. But sadly it's not bad/good, just bad. Shoddy direction, some terrible acting particularly from the guy playing Ronny. His prep for this appeared to be watching Ali G. A lot. Like his performance this film is all over the place, trying to be funny, scary, dark, political and getting nowhere.. The stripper was seriously cute. I'll at least give it that. I spent most of the movie trying to remember where I'd seen her before. then it hit me. The video for a Euro dance version of the Hall and Oates classic, Out of Touch which came out a few years ago and in which she took off her knickers and threw them in the air. Ah, good times. In this one she doesn't take her pants off although she does get to wear an awesome red catsuit. Can you tell I'm trying to get to 10 lines? There really isn't anything else to say about this one. Other than, avoid unless absolutely hammered and bored.