stagnight

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HORRORHOUND #33

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(2009)
Directed by Peter A. Dowling
Starring Vinessa Shaw, Breckin Meyer, Scott Adkins, Kip Pardue, Karl Geary, Luca Bercovici

Take THE HILLS HAVE EYES, but set it in the underground caverns of the New York subway system and you have the movie STAG NIGHT. Unfortunately, there is really nothing original here that we haven’t seen many times before. Borrowing from films with cannibalistic underground dwellers like DEATH LINE (1972) C.H.U.D. (1984), and CREEP (2004), but making it a little more action orientated, writer/director Dowling still doesn’t bring anything new to the dinner table.

A group of guys decide to hit one last strip joint before calling an end to their bachelor party. Getting on the subway, they have a slight run in with a couple of the strippers who left the last club at the same time. Somehow they are stupid enough to get off the train at some deserted station. Yea, I know….otherwise we wouldn’t have had a movie. But it doesn’t take too long after as they’re wandering the tunnels that they run across some demented scavengers that live there. The main leader looks like Rob Zombie after a long tour.

Using the trusty “shakey-cam” effects during the violent fight scenes is a sure way to keep the audience guessing just the hell is going on. But here, unless the characters are standing still talking, the camera is shaking around all the time! The only tension it was building for me was on my eyes trying to focus on what was happening. This is a style of cinematography that got really old, really quick. All it does is give the viewer a headache while trying to figure out just what the hell is happening. And adding to the wonderful shakey-cam effect is having the film take place in the dark subways and sewers, making it even harder to see what is going on.

There is some decent gore, with lots of cutting going on, including a couple of pretty good head trauma sequences. But once again, due to the shaking camera and the darken setting, it's pretty tough to see any details.

The film does have a pretty decent cast, with some well name actors, like Breckin Meyer, that tries to pull this old and tired script into something more than it is, but just doesn’t do it. There is nothing original and we can see what is going to happen with each of the characters way before it does. We were even waiting for the big scare at the end of the film to pop out, and again at least there, they didn’t disappoint. There are many other films that took this same theme and did a much better job with it, like the ones we mentioned above. Check those out.