Stag Night (2008)


REVIEWER RATING: 
6/10


This mark's Flightplan writer Peter A. Dowling's directorial debut and for a flick that will likely go straight to DVD in the US (whenever a distributor picks it up that is) it isn't a bad way to start off in the genre. The film is like a cross between the 1972 film Raw Meat and the cool 1993 Action/Crime flick Judgment Night, as we follow a group of guys on their way home from a bachelor party that are mistakenly left stranded at an abandoned subway station, along with a couple other female ex-passengers.

The group decide to walk through the tunnels to the nearest active station, but on the way witness the brutal slaying of a police officer by a few crazed vagrants. The group are then forced to fight for their lives and find a way out of the labyrinth of a tunnel system before they're all murdered in the same grisly fashion. The movie offers a surprisingly decent amount of violence and blood, and a nice scene involving a vagrant getting his head crushed between the subway tracks.

However, these group of crazed vagrants were a little far-fetched in my opinion. Not only did they communicate in a series of grunts, but they also looked like a bunch of failed homeless Rob Zombie impersonators, and how or why they became so violent and animalistic was never really explained (unless I missed something). This is even more confusing when we come across families of seemingly regular homeless people also living in the abandoned parts of the subway. Aside from that, I found myself enjoying the film.

The attempts at survival by the group kept me interested, and I especially liked how the film wasn't as cookie-cutter as you'd expect. The biggest gripe I have with the flick (next to some of the plot-holes) is the directing from Peter A. Dowling, who for some reason decided to throw in random and sometimes unintentionally funny slow motion sequences. I specifically had a good laugh when a vagrant decided to lunge towards a certain victim in slow-motion, which made it overly-dramatic,  but also very funny.

The movie surprised me, as it's not as cookie-cutter as you'd expect, and I found myself interested and entertained by the attempts at survival from our leads and the decent blood and gore that we're given in some of the key scenes. Worth a look when it becomes readily available.
OVERALL: 
The movie surprised me, as it's not as cookie-cutter as you'd expect, and I found myself interested and entertained by the attempts at survival from our leads and the decent blood and gore that we're given in some of the key scenes. Worth a look when it becomes readily available.


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