Stag Night (Blu-ray / DVD)
Steve Barton
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Reviewed by Uncle Creepy
Starring Breckin Meyer, Scott Adkins, Kip Pardue, Karl Geary
Directed by Peter A. Dowling
Distributed by Lionsgate Home Entertainment
Having lived in Brooklyn, New York, the majority of my life, I can easily attest to the horrors of the subway system. I’ve seen it all, man. People getting stabbed in the face, riots, bums giving themselves haircuts with a book of matches, you name it. Filmmakers are sensitive to the scary prospect of being lost in maze-like tunnels under big cities that are home to public transportation systems, and as a result we’ve gotten many a film about the underground horrors we don’t always see while speeding along at excessive speeds. Except for rush hour of course. That’s when everything slows to a crawl.
In any event, here we have Stag Night from Ghost House Underground, which tells the tale of a group of friends (all pretty much stereotypical: the nice guy, the loud guy, the guy who just wants to go home) who are celebrating their final night of guy-oriented-fun with their buddy who’s getting married. Of course these types of shindigs can last well into the evening as you bump from bar to bar so it’s a good thing that the mass transit system is there to transport our protagonists from one locale to the other. Well, in retrospect I guess it’s not such a good thing.
You see, due to a kind of questionable set of circumstances, our train riders end up getting off at an abandoned station that no one has visited since the days when Richard Nixon was President. With no other options they end up needing to walk along the tracks to get to the next station. On paper that sounds simple enough, but little do they suspect that said tunnels are home to a community of what can only be described as a cannibalistic clan of feral Rob Zombie look-alikes. Blades swing, bites are taken, limbs fly, roll credits.
Stag Night brings absolutely nothing new to the table in terms of content, but thankfully it doesn’t really do anything wrong either. Despite being highly derivative in some areas, director Dowling still manages to deliver a pretty fast-paced and violent terror tale. The only complaint? Once again shaky cam needs to be employed to give the feeling of being frantic during the movie’s chase scenes. Enough of this technique already! You’re not being edgy, you’re being annoying! Is it so hard to hold the camera straight so we can see what the hell is going on? Stag Night doesn’t overuse this headache inducing crap, but it’s still bothersome, especially given the film’s inherently dark setting.
In this case the Blu-ray really shines in terms of picture quality with solid deep blacks, warm flesh tones, and razor sharp detail all around. The DVD, while okay for what it offers, doesn’t look anywhere near as good.
In terms of special features, you won’t find anything too special in either package. All we get are your standard making-of featurette that runs close to half an hour and a quick trailer gallery. Yep, not much to see here at all.
Still, Stag Night is fun, at times brutal, and never dull. We doubt after watching it you’ll be calling your friends up to sing its praises, but for what it is, it gets the job done. Recommended for a quick horror fix on a dark stormy night.
Special Features
3 1/2 out of 5
Special Features:
2 out of 5
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