Over 100,00 people are reported missing in New York City every year. The adults are never looked for…
In olden times, the night prior to his wedding, the young groom would be sent off into the forest to kill and bring home a stag, to prove he could provide for his family. Now it’s about proving your manhood through imbibing massive quantities of alcohol, and looking at strange, naked women. How dangerous can a night out with friends be?
In Stag Night, groom Mike (Kip Pardue – The Wizard of Gore) is out with friends Carl (Scott Adkins – X-Men Origins: Wolverine), Joe (Karl Geary – Hysteria: The Def Leppard Story), and troublemaking brother Tony (Breckin Meyer – Clueless), to slay the modern day deer before his nuptials to Brita (Vinessa Shaw – The Hills Have Eyes). While moving to another club our stripper bound boys meet two young ladies, Michele (Sarah Barrand – Footballers’ Wives) and Claire (Rachel Oliva – Dark Reality), and in the course of trying to pick them up, Tony manages to get pepper sprayed, and the group pries open the subway doors and exit for fresh air. Do I really need to tell you what happens next? I thought not. Now the stranded travelers are walking back to civilization, and split up at an abandoned station. Introduce feral, cannibal, subway family (Sorry Jerrod). And now our gang is forced into a series of running, hiding, getting caught, escaping, and fighting back episodes.
Stag Nightcould be a horror movie cliché in the vein of The Hills Have Eyes and Wrong Turn, but the majority of the flick takes place in the subway system, shot in Bulgaria, which is a myriad of tunnels, intersections, and abandoned rooms. This system lulls us into a false sense of security, thinking that tunnels must be a straight shot between stations, and therefore easy to navigate; not an urban maze in which adults become lost and disoriented. Add the foreign design and you have an unusual journey.
Special Features:
The Making of Stag Night Featurette.
Trailer Gallery.
English and Spanish Subtitles
16 X 9 Widescreen Presentation (1.78: 1)
English 5.1 Dolby Digital Audio
Stag Nightis from the Ghost House Underground imprint, and is responsible for bringing new writers, directors, and actors to the front of the horror genre. This movie, while rough with a clichéd theme script, is actually an intriguing movie. The characters are somewhat your standard group of lost travelers, though Tony has some interesting moments, as do Michele and Claire. And while there are only so many things you can do with wayward travelers and inbred families, but the subway setting is especially creepy and confusing, and the subway family is an unknown factor. They are dirty, cannibalistic, and seemingly inbred, but there is another dynamic with them that is unique, and unexplained. Maybe the tunnel dwellers could shed some light on them.
I like this movie. It’s not a great movie, but it is unique, entertaining, and every time you watch it you see something you hadn’t before. The subway family is also an interesting aspect to this film, and I think it deserves a sequel so their origin can be explored. But I could be wrong. This movie won’t be for everyone, but it’s for me.
ComicsOnline gives Stag Night 3 ½ metaphorically slain deer out of 5.
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