Stag Night

USA 2009
produced by
Christopher Eberts, Michael Philip, Arnold Rifkin, Chris Ouwinga (executive), Todd Traina (executive), Darryn Welch (executive) for Rifkin-Eberts, Film Tiger, Instinctive Films
directed by Peter A.Dowling
starring Kip Pardue, Vinessa Shaw, Breckin Meyer, Scott Adkins, Karl Geary, Sarah Barrand, Luca Bercovici, Genadii Ganchev, Radoslav Parvanov, Nikolai Sotirov, Itai Diakov, Rachel Oliva, Suzanna Urszuly, Jo Marr, Lubomir Yonchev, Maya Andreevy, Amy Mihailova, Yordan Zahariev, Phil Jackson, Vencislav Stojanov, Dennis Andreev, Gabi Balanica
written by Peter A. Dowling, music by Benedikt Brydern, special effects makeup by Elvis Jones, visual effects by Alex Filipov, Liubomir Savov

review by
Mike Haberfelner

It's Mike's (Kip Pardue) stag night, but aftter his brother Tony (Breckin Meyer) starts a fight, the two of them and their friends Carl (Scott Adkins) and Joe (Karl Geary) get thrown out of a stripclub, and travelling uptown by subway to continue their party elsewhere, they run into two strippers from the club, Brita (Vinessa Shaw) and Michelle (Sarah Barrand) - and after Tony gets into a fight with them, they for no reason at all all get stranded at a long abandoned and sealed off subway station - and while most of them agree to walk to the next station to get out, Carl and Michelle stay behind to make out ... but instead of shagging, they end up being killed by some long-haired guys (Luca Bercovici, Genadii Ganchev, Radoslav Parvanov). The others witness the long-haired guys killing someone else elsewhere and soon find themselves on the run from them, and it's not long before Joe is killed and Tony is allowed to redeem himself by dying a hero's death saving the others. Mike and Brita make it to some underground settlement, where they ask for help - but soon enough they have to realize the natives here are in league with the long-haired ones, and thus Mike and Brita have to run some more before they have their showdown with their pursuers, where Brita is allowed to die a heroine's death (after all she's a stripper and he's engaged to be married to someone else, so she has to go), while Mike actually manages to kill the long-haired ones and make it to the next station - but in a very tired shock ending, he is slaughtered in the very last scene by the kid of the long-haired ones.

The premise of someone being caught in the underground system of whatever city being chased by a gang of killers sounds promising on paper - yet the 2004 film Creep proved that this concept doesn't necessarily translate to the screen too well. If nothing else, Stag Night from 5 years later proves that it has learned nothing from the shortcomings of Creep, though, it's as unimaginative a rip-off of the earlier film as can be.

To be quite honest though, the first half hour or so of Stag Night isn't too bad, it even contains a few effective and/or gruesome scenes. Problem is, after this, writer/director Peter A.Dowling seems to have run flat out of ideas, and instead of at least trying to progress his story, he treats us to endless scenes of the characters either running down some tunnels or fighting among one another, and when the protagonists actually face their adversaries (which actually happens every now and again), these encounters follow the rules of an action flick rather than a shocker, and thus the characters mostly engage in fistfights - which are pretty boringly staged, even. The main problem of the film though might not be its repetitiveness or its bad action, but the complete blandness of its characters: A few of them are walking clichés - the good guy who's set to marry the other day, his loose-cannon brother who's allowed to die a hero's death, the resolute stripper with a heart of gold who's actually a college student - while the vast majority of others are nothing, totally bland, they just stand around, hang out with the leads, but never even try to win over the audience - and thus when they're killed, who cares?

To sum it up, a bad film, and definitely not worth your time and money.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

Feeling lucky? Want to search any of my partnershops yourself for more, better results? (commissions earned)

The links below will take you just there!!!

Find Stag Night at the amazons ...   amazon.com   amazon.co.uk   amazon.de Looking for imports? Find Stag Night here ...   eThaiCD.com Your shop for all things Thai Something naughty? (Must be over 18 to go there!)   find Stag Night at adultvideouniverse.com

Thanks for watching !!!