2.08.2013

#297 -- Stag Night (2008)

Director: Peter A. Dowling
Rating: 3.5 / 5

It's weird. When it comes to watching movies On Demand, when I pick them, they usually turn out to be duds. But when my boyfriend chooses one, they're always good. Maybe I should let him choose them more often. Anyways, the point is, he chose this one, and it's good.

It started off with a couple of guys attending a bachelor party getting kicked out of a club. I assume it's because of Tony, the groom-to-be's trouble making brother. He said he knew of another, better, club that they could go to, so they all loaded up on the subway to continue their partying. On the subway, they met a couple of girls. Tony tried hitting on one of the girls, but she wasn't into it, and kept telling him to get away from her. Being the drunken asshole that he was, he just wouldn't listen, and he ended up with a face full of pepper spray. In fact, I think everyone ended up with a face full of pepper spray. Either that or the fumes got to them, so they all got off the train to get away from the smell and to adjust their eyes. I'm not sure why they had to get off the train to do this, other than it being a crucial part of the story. The accidentally got off at a station that was closed down and gated up. The train left, and they were trapped with no way to get out. Instead of sitting around and waiting for another train --since it was about four in the morning -- some of them decided to try to walk, on the tracks, to the next station. Two of them, one of the guys and one of the girls, stayed behind to get it on and ended up getting more than they'd hoped for. Just when they were getting hot and heavy, a little kid showed up, took the girl's wallet and ran off. The guy chased after him, only to end up having a chunk bitten out of his hand.



Meanwhile, the others have reached another station, where they witness three Rob Zombie look-alikes chopping a police officer to pieces. Being the smart people that they are, they decided that they should probably run, but not before they made some noise, alerting the guys to their presence. Those three guys got back to the original terminal before they did, killed their two friends, and dragged them back to their underground home. By that time, the others had found said underground home, full of giant dogs and plenty of weapons. It was then that they realized what they were dealing with: cannibals. Trapped in the underground world of New York City, it seemed like there was no possible way for them to make it through the night alive.



It wasn't exactly a unique story, but it was good. It played out just as you'd expect. People got killed and eaten, and one person was able to take the cannibals down. The characters weren't really unique either, but then again, they never are in horror movies, so that's okay. What did make the movie unique was that, for one in this particular subgenre, there wasn't as much gore as you would expect. Oh, there was gore, don't get me wrong. People were getting their heads cut off, guts ripped out, and chunks bitten out of them. But it's not nearly as much as you'd expect from cannibals, at least usually. There wren't huge feasts, or the cannibals ripping into people like savages. Mostly, it was the chase that we saw. It was the friends trying to find their way out of the labyrinthine underground tunnels. Which is cool, I guess, but I don't think there was enough story to back up the lack of gore. There was a little bit of character development, but there wasn't enough story to the characters to make their interactions all that interesting. One of them was getting married, one of them had a kid, one was an asshole, and the other was just sort of there. With a little more story, I think the idea would have worked better. I do like that it focused more on the chase than the savagery of the cannibals, because it's different, but I don't think it worked quite as well as they had hoped. Either way, it's a pretty decent movie that'll have you engaged the entire time. Oh, and let's talk about some of the stars. There was Kip Pardue (Sunshine from Remember the Titans) as the groom-to-be, Breckin Meyer (Road Trip & Josie and the Pussycats) as Tony the asshole, and Vinessa Shaw (Hocus Pocus) as one of the girls. So there are definitely some familiar faces here. Overall, I think it was a good movie and not a waste of time.

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