Stag Night

There are some lines at the beginning of the movie (after the "initial" shock scene that is), that try to convince that this movie has a real background. Of course as with many other horror movies, this does not stay in our reality and has quite some major flaws in it's story telling. You just get enough background information on some of the guys (their relationship to each other), to know who is who. Beyond that there is nothing to really distinguish them (apart from the character that Breckin Meyers portrays, but never really achieves anything with, except from his first scenes).

Actually, if you didn't know Breckin Meyer (which could be the case), you might be excused to not even really notice him and be completely irritated by his action(s) later as the movie progresses.

Storytelling and character aren't really the backbones of this movie, but it has some nice/decent horror moments and some pretty good gore effects. Unfortunately some scenes are edited/shot as if the cameraman/editor had been under "influence". I'm not a big fan of the "shake the camera" and it will look frightening theory. Others might be, not me though.

Decent, but nothing you really need to watch, unless you are into this sort of genre pictures (and even then there are so many other movies out there)

I have watched the 2008 horror movie "Stag Night" once before, back when it was a relatively new movie. However, I have entirely forgotten about it, and thus opted to watch it again here in 2025, as I stumbled upon it by random luck.

Writer Peter A. Dowling put together a fair enough script, though it was rather generic. That being said, I am not saying that the movie is boring, it just wasn't anything new or innovative that writer Peter A. Dowling brought to the genre. And truth be told, there are far more enjoyable and memorable movies with cannibalistic subterranean dwellers out there.

Of the entire cast ensemble, I was only familiar with Scott Adkins and Breckin Meyer. The acting performances in the movie were good. It was nice to see Scott Adkins in a movie such as this; something different than the standard run-of-the-mill action martial arts movies that he tends to star in.

Watchable, for sure. But I believe that newcomers to the horror genre will enjoy this movie far more than I did as a seasoned horror veteran.

My rating of writer and director Peter A. Dowling's 2008 movie "Stag Night" lands on a five out of ten stars.

Stag night kind of reminds me of the 1973 movie deathline in America it's called raw meat. But censored heavily. And midnight meat train. It's an ugly world below the subway and these guys and 2 women leave a subway car and get trapped in this dirty disgusting world inhabited by cannibals. Can we call them chuds?Anyway it's a predictable story with a lot of blood and guts. It stars; Breckin Myer (Freddy's dead, final nightmare) Vanessa Shaw, and a few unknowns. It's a good time Easter you should only see once. No visible plot. But an uneasy feeling of claustrophobia.with rats and roaches and dirty toilets. The subway can be a very scary place and you really don't know what kind of evil lives underneath. But no alligators so they did leave that urban legend out of the movie. But can you get any worse than canabals?

I never intended to watch Stag night – not this one anyway. I read on IMDb about a British film that was more or less a wannabe Shaun of the Dead entitled 'Stag Night of the Dead'. It was supposed to be reasonably amusing and with the action transpiring on a Stag Night you can't help but guess that a certain number of strippers might've been involved… I wasn't actively hunting SNotD but as things tend to do the title lodged itself in my subconscious. A few weeks later at the video shop I spy the cover for Stag Night and my mind does a quick double-take; was that supposed to be good and if so why?, as it was on the weekly shelf I threw caution to the wind and slapped down the $1 required to borrow Stag Night for an entire 7 day period.

Stag Night has no 'of the dead', no laughs and only a brief moment of nudity… But it isn't terrible.

Here's why; Predictably enough the movie is set during a Stag Night. Not a glamorous or large scale affair, just four guys having some beers in the city. When we meet the four guys they are being kicked out of a strip club and discussing whether to call it a night or kick on.

Kicking on wins.

Shortly after they are aboard the subway heading to the next destination with two of the strippers from the club who are done for the night. After some obnoxiousness from one of the quartet leads to mace being released, a door is forced open (somehow) and all 6 exit the train in a dark section of subway tunnel at 4 AM.

Let's fast forward only a few minutes: SUBWAY TUNNEL CANNIBALS!!! Yep it's that kinda film. The ensuing hour has the usual chaos, stupid decisions and unlikely events as the 6 mostly unlikable anti-heroes stumble about in the dark.

There is liberal use of F-Bombs even well before the Rob Zombie looking cannibals show up to slice and dice. The film has one good kill scene that is more entertaining than it is inexplicable – and it is quite inexplicable – and an hour of running from bad guys in a film most aptly described as Mimic Vs Wrong Turn.

I didn't hate Stag Night. It's just too reminiscent of so many other better movies to stand out from the pack. I like the fact that they played it straight and never winked to camera or made things too unbelievable… what am I saying? SUBWAY TUNNEL CANNIBALS!!! I'd like that last remark stricken from the record.

Final Rating – 5.5 / 10. If you want lotsa gore and minimal thought all wrapped up in a familiar package Stag Night isn't bad, how good Stag Night of the Dead is remains to be seen.

One last thing: How many movies feature monsters/killers or creatures that have apparently been prying their deadly trade for some time without anyone ever realising. Fine I can believe that they have a 100% kill rate once they target their prey, as unrealistic as that is. But no-one ever seems to ask about the missing or looks too hard into things.

And when cops do they are invariably killed… but who looks for them? (I know, I know. Just a movie.)

This movie is quite all right for its kind (Creep, The Midnight Meat Train etc). It's gorgeously shot and you can actually "feel" the action and all those fast-moving running scenes and bloody fights add to the action. The film is barely scary if you have already seen movies of this kind. The only thing that distinguishes this film from others is that here you're not dealing with one or two savage creatures but many.

The characters, their dialog lines and their reactions are quite natural and the music score fits the scenes perfectly well. If you decide to go watch this film, be prepared to see a lot of repetitive actions; running in endless dark tunnels while being followed by a horde of savage creatures. The savage men are believable at least they don't look like monsters.

The characters are not well developed but you can get a glimpse into their real selves through some of their actions like sacrificing themselves for the sake of others. At certain places in the film (especially towards the end) the film desperately tries to get you sympathize with the dying characters and feel their pain through the background music, because in these kinds of movies we rarely care if any of the characters dies due to the fact that character development is absent from a lot of horror movies and this one is no exception.

The only "effective" scenes in the movie are those where the victims look into the eyes of their killers for a few seconds before they die a slow death. The movie as a whole is not scary, but the last scene startled me. They should've used more of this "startling" technique throughout the film instead of showing the creatures approaching their victims from miles away which made the film very predictable, although the ending was not a cliché and that's what I liked most about this film.