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Stag Night
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray A - America - Lions Gate Home Entertainment Review written by and copyright: Anthony Arrigo (26th June 2011). |
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The Film
 I rarely get surprised by new horror titles from America these days, especially when they’re direct-to-video. I’m even more skeptical when it’s a title that’s been released under the “After Dark” or “Ghost House Productions” label, since the universal word seems to be that they’re all of subpar quality and not worth wasting time on. So, I was hesitant when I received a copy of “Stag Night” (2008), one of the many Ghost House Productions titles on the market right now. For those of you who don’t know, Ghost House is the low-budget horror company that Sam Raimi and Robert Tapert started to produce horror genre films. They’ve had some great success with their theatrical releases, such as “The Grudge” (2004) and “Drag Me To Hell” (2009), but their DTV line has met with less than stellar results. I, however, can’t speak to the quality of their films since I’ve yet to see any of their DTV offerings… until now. So, as I mentioned before, new horror from the United States rarely registers on my radar. Everything is derivative, devoid of actual scares and chock full o’ piss poor CGI work. Or it’s a loosely scripted torture flick that exists solely to showcase how much fake blood and latex skin a production is capable of using. It seems like the only people who remember how to make good horror movies live in other countries. But I digress. “Stag Night” didn’t surprise me in a “wow, this is amazing” kind of way, but I did end the film marginally satisfied with the final results. Writer/director Peter A. Dowling managed to make a horror film that isn’t populated by entirely one-dimensional characters, doesn’t feel the need to fill in every blank, and while it lacks any scares, it certainly leaves you unsure of who will survive. I think that with a larger budget this could have been a fun gem amongst the rough of contemporary horror. But there are a couple of glaring issues I have that keep it from being worth repeat viewings. Mike (Kip Pardue) is about the get married, but not before his brother, Tony (Breckin Meyer) and best friends throw him a bachelor party on the streets of New York City. After the group gets kicked out of a club thanks to Tony’s attitude, they wind up riding the subway to a new location. They even run into a couple of ladies, but Tony’s foul mouth and fast hands find them in a cloud of pepper spray. When the subway train stops at a crossing, they pry open the doors to get some much-needed air… and are promptly left behind on a platform that hasn’t seen use since Nixon was in office. With the gates leading out locked tight, the group is forced to walk out through the tunnels. But there’s a clan of seriously insane cannibals roaming the subterranean corridors, and they’ll need to think fast unless they all want to end up hacked to pieces and ready for consumption. This movie reminded me of a few horror titles, specifically “Wrong Turn” (2003), since the cannibals appear to be kin and hunt together, and another subway cannibal film, the rarely-seen “Raw Meat” (aka “Death Line”) (1973). It’s also mentioned in the “Making Of”, but I applaud Dowling’s decision to set his slasher film in a subway rather than another killer-in-the-woods tale. Although, I’ll admit I never grow tired of that tried-and-true formula. I do think it’s a little bizarre that a group of homeless cannibals prowl these lines. At least “Wrong Turn” provided a brief backstory to explain why there might be cannibals living in the woods, but these guys just seem like they were homeless dudes who got tired of begging for change and decided to turn to eating people instead of mooching off them. Unfortunately, their appearance left A LOT to be desired in my eyes. I think Dowling would have been smarter to go the route of a film like “The Descent” (2007), making the foes more creature than man, or at least something vaguely human. Here, the flesh eaters look like they’re all wearing Rob Zombie Halloween costumes. I’m not even joking. They all have long, dirty black dreadlocks and raggedy clothing. I don’t know how nobody on the production team noticed this and lobbied for a change (maybe someone did?) but it killed what otherwise is a fun, simple slasher film with some decent characterization. These aren’t all one-note guys. Tony might be the wannabe badass of the group, but when things start to go south, he steps up to the plate to prove he’s not the selfish egotist everyone thinks he is. These guys all felt relatable. Even in the short amount of time we’re given to meet them, Dowling allows enough personality to show through that we can empathize when something goes horribly wrong. I’m not saying this is some Aaron Sorkin level of writing here, but I generally expect DTV horror to feature deplorable acting and one-dimensional characters, so these guys felt more legit. Big props to Autonomous, Inc. who designed and executed all of the film’s effects. I don’t remember seeing much, if any, CGI used here. Almost everything was a practical gag featuring lots of blood, lots of body parts and some seriously wicked wounds. Horror fans constantly lament the fact that low-budget productions rely on cheap computer-generated gore to keep costs down (and great FX artists out of work!), so the mere fact that this picture eschewed all of that in favor of some real, hardcore latex and stage blood murders makes me that much more appreciative of what was accomplished with their (I assume) meager budgetary confines.
Video
The 1.78:1 1080p 24/fps AVC MPEG-4 encoded image is a definite mixed bag. The majority of the film takes place in dark, low lighting conditions, so there’s not much here to give a “pop” to the image, though that’s almost certainly intentional. Some scenes, specifically on the subway, look very pleasing, with a good level of detail present and pleasing colors. But once we get deep into the subway, things become a bit less presentable. There’s a lot of grain here – sometimes obtrusively so – and the image suffers tremendously with clarity and detail completely lost to the combination of noise and black shadows. Fine detail doesn’t hold up well in these darkened conditions either, but a few scenes where some minor lighting is present allows the picture to soak it in and improve itself greatly. In some ways this didn’t bother me so much. Since the movie has many of the trappings of the old school genre slashers (contemporary tech and hairstyles aside), I think a little grain works in its favor. That isn’t to say I can completely overlook the times it becomes unbearably heavy, but this isn’t a movie or picture that should be held up to much scrutiny.
Audio
The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound track mixed at 48kHz/24-bit is no slouch. Right off the bat, the film opens with some pounding rain which emanates from all speakers while the film’s better-than-average credits roll. There’s also some good activity in the subway – from the barreling of the train down the tracks, the faint echoes of sound that come from every nook of the tunnel system to the chatter amongst a homeless city the group stumbles upon. There’s even an explosion that managed to give the LFE track a nice jolt. Most of the action is front-loaded, but given the fact this film had a relatively meager budget, I didn’t go in expecting the most dynamic example of audio acoustics. Subtitles are also included in English only.
Extras
There isn’t much – at all – but we do get one nice featurette on the making of the film. There are also the standard theatrical trailer and studio bonus trailers included. “The Making Of Stag Night” (480p) featurette runs for 34 minutes and 48 seconds. Going much more in-depth than I anticipated, this features the requisite talking heads discussing their roles in the film as well as lots from director/writer Dowling on what he had hoped to achieve with his budget. His idea was to make something that harkened back to truly chilling tales from the 70's, and he wanted it set somewhere that wasn’t the woods since “that’s what everyone always does”. We also get a good look at them shooting many scenes and how they did some of the effects. If you enjoyed the film at all, this is worth watching afterwards. The film’s theatrical trailer (480p) runs for 1 minute and 48 seconds. Bonus trailers (1080p) are also included for the following Lionsgate releases: - “Psych 9” runs for 1 minute and 47 seconds. - “Open House” runs for 1 minute and 52 seconds. - “Lionsgate Blu-ray horror” promo runs for 1 minute and 4 seconds. A bookmarks feature is also included.
Packaging
The single disc comes in a Blu-ray eco-case with some rather bland cover art slapped with the huge Ghost House Productions banner running lengthways down it.
Overall
It doesn’t break any new ground, but “Stag Night” ended up being better than I thought it had any right to be. If only the creative team had done something more, well, creative with the design of the cannibals, I think this could have been a gem in the rough. Even so, it’s a fun way for horror fans to blow 83 minutes.
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