Stag Night (2010)

Boring

Simple and well acted, it has tension enough to knot the stomach.

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Four men out in New York celebrating stag night get thrown out of a nightclub due to Tony (Meyer) being a jerk. Younger brother Mike (Pardue) is the groom, and the four of them jump on the subway to head for more partying. Tony strikes again on the train when he pisses off a coupe of erotic dancers and the six of them prematurely exit the train and get left behind. They decide the only way out is to walk to the next station. Not in the greatest of moods, the six of them see three huge cannibal men attack and slice up a cop. These cannibals are brutal beings who rule the underground area that is unused since the 1970's. Once the group is discovered by the cannibals they start to hunt them and a fight for their lives ensues. Not the most original idea to come down the pike, but first time Director and Writer Peter A. Dowling makes good use of the underground setting and makes this film entertaining and at times scary. The characters are well written and acted and the cannibals are quite ferocious. The movie has decent gore and some of it is disturbing. The pacing is fast and the characters are someone you can root for a change. This is straight ahead horror that achieves what it sets out to do.

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.

four guys on a stag night, get thrown out of a club, get on a train, start chatting up some women, get off at the wrong stop which hasn't been used since Watergate, and get chased and gradually killed by hobo cavemen....Sounds good? it had potential, these sort of films have no names playing the leads, but since the two leads are Pardue and Meyer, you would expect something above mediocre.What we get is a rip off of the far Superior 'creep' from 2004, which actually had a back story and a convincing killer.And it's pretty boring. From the start you know that two of them will die, despite their billing in the film, because they are so annoying and cocky, instant horror film death.The killers are something you have seen a dozen times in films such as the hill have eyes, wrong turn, and even the fog.There is very little to offer in this film, it does try hard, but just becomes very lethargic early on, and never catches up with itself.

After a failed pick-up attempt on a subway train lands four guys and two girls in an abandoned stop at four in the morning they realize they have bigger problems then trying to find a way out. There really is not much to say about this one. Not much to this movie but finding people and killing and dismembering them. VERY Gory!!! For a "Ghosthouse" horror movie it actually is not too bad though. The best way to describe it would be if the creatures from "I am legend" and "The Descent" lived in the New York subways. If you are into gore and a decent story this would be a good pick up. I give it a C.Would I watch again? - I don't think so.