DVD Review: Stag Night

Stag Night is the latest addition to the subgenre of horror movies dealing with the bad things going down on underground subway systems and manages to be a mildly diverting exercise in low-budget horror.

The titular Stag Night’s recipient is Mike, an everyman bachelor (played enthusiastically by Kip Pardue, familiar to genre fans from the Wizard of Gore remake) who is celebrating his last days of singledom in New York City with friends Carl (Scott Adkins) and Joe (Karl Geary) and his brother Tony (Breckin Meyer.) After being kicked out of a strip club, the group decide to take a train uptown to continue drinking and end up sharing a carriage with Michelle, a stripper from the club (Sarah Barrand) and her friend Brita (Vinessa Shaw). After Tony offends the two girls, Brita sprays him with mace, and the whole group ends up (inexplicably) getting off the train. Unsurprisingly, the train pulls away and the group is stranded in an abandoned subway station in the dark with no phone signal. Pretty soon, the group split up to search for a way out and end up discovering the Subway’s feral inhabitants hacking a security guard to pieces. The group soon become unwitting prey to the subterranean killers and must fight to survive the night.

Though it shares subject matter with any number of similarly-plotted films such as Christopher Smith’s Creep and Gary Sherman’s classic Deathline (a.k.a. Raw Meat), Stag Night still manages to be entertaining, largely due some inventive death scenes and the performances of Pardue and Shaw. Unfortunately, the script rarely deviates from corny stereotypes and predictable plot devices (including an awkward explanation of the origin of the term ‘Stag Night’, which according to one character is the olden days name for a bachelor party – despite the fact that the term is actually still used in the UK.) There is also a severe reliance on slow motion and shaky camerawork, the latter of which is so dizzying it actually distracts from the action rather than heightening the tension. Stag Night could really have done with a few new ideas to get some more weight behind it to raise it above its status as a run-of-the-mill DTV horror film, but it rattles along at a solid pace throughout its 84-minute running time and has enough gory highlights to satisfy the post-pub crowd.

Stag Night is out now on DVD and Blu Ray from Kaleidoscope Entertainment, certificate 18.

Brazilian Boogeymen and Italian hardnuts

I'm always complaining that I don't get time to watch the vast array of DVDs I've amassed over the last few years. In fact, I've got some that still have the wrapping on, and some box sets (Pinky Violence Collection, The Blind Dead, Phantasm, Bava boxes 1 and 2) that have barely been touched.

A recent addition to this was a six disc Coffin Joe box set, bought direct from the man himself at RIOFAN. Having found the time for a couple of films, I opted for Esta Noite Encarnarei no Teu Cadáver (This Night I'll Possess Your Corpse), the second film in the Coffin Joe trilogy. The titular gravedigger's quest to find a suitable woman to impregnate and produce a son (he never entertains the idea of fathering a girl) continues where At Midnight I'll Take Your Soul left off. Ze De Caixao wakes up in the hospital having recovered from almost being blinded, and no sooner is he well he is absolved of his alleged crimes and is off on the spawning highway again.

This time around he kidnaps 6 women, including a rich heiress and puts them through a series of trials to prove their worthiness and suitability to bear his offspring. This typically involves putting spiders in their beds, torturing them with snakes and the like. Needless to say, he is quite the charmer.

This all gets shifted to the sidelines, however, when the police commissioner's daughter arrives in town, and Ze turns his attentions to her.

A lot of criticism gets levelled at Mojica for making incomprehensible movies, and I do think his work divides in a similar way to Jess Franco. However, despite the miniscule budget of this late-sixties entry, there were a number of key moments that raised it above much of wild world cinema. I'd heard about the famous 'hell' sequence in this film where the action leaps into vivid technicolour, and the film comes alive during this hallucinatory dream sequence. It recalls the surreal extremes of Nobuo Nakagawa's Jigoku, with nightmarish imagery and sound that transcend the film's limitations. The scene was preceded by another classic chilling moment wherein Ze is literally dragged by a ghoul to the graveyard. This captured that awesome feeling that is so rare in horror movies these days; the "what the hell is that" moment. An inexplicable feeling of dread when faced with the unknown, the other. Brilliant. Now I can't wait to continue my journey into the labyrinth that is the cinema of Ze De Caixao, and hopefully the forthcoming closing chapter of the trilogy "The Embodiment of Evil" will be a fine return of the diabolical Coffin Joe.

The second movie in my impromptu double bill was Fernando Di Leo's Milano Calibro 9.
The first part of Di Leo's Milieu trilogy (which is connected thematically rather than in a traditional sense) is powerhouse of double crossing mafia mobsters and small time hoodlums, the likes of which I haven't seen for a long time.

Milano Calibro 9 is an absolute masterpiece of Crime Cinema, with a pre-credits sequence that completely blew me away. At times it sets out its political stall a little too prominently, but you forgive these moments as they are soon superceded by more killer scenes of ice-cold precision. All of the players in this whirlwind of violence and double-crossing are doomed to follow the path they have chosen. Also, being an OST nut, the score by Luis Bacalov and Italian progsters Osanna is sublime, sweeping and orchestral in places and deep and funky in others.

I've now got the pleasure of following it up with La Mala Ordina and Il Boss, the other installments of the trilogy. All three are the RARO editions bought in Rome last year and are worth seeking out. Milano Calibro 9 is a double disc special edition, and Il Boss comes packaged with Killer Vs Killers, another Euro crime movie starring Henry Silva.

Quack Quack

Certain movies require a certain frame of mind. For example, I owned Taxi Driver on DVD for at least a year before I even attempted to watch it. When the day came when I was in the mood to settle down into Travis Bickle "unique" world view, I knew it had to happen then. Until this past weekend, I lumped Lucio Fulci's controversial slasher THE NEW YORK RIPPER into this bracket. But not any more...

First off, a little background history on my first and only previous encounter with this much-maligned slice of Spaghetti Splatter. In the days before DVD, the only way to get hold of hard-to-find cult movies was via filmfairs on ropey VHS dupes, usually from Laserdisc. And it was one such trip across the pennines to Manchester that enabled me and a fellow cult film enthusiast to pick up uncut versions of Fulci's film and I SPIT ON YOUR GRAVE. Now that's a double bill, I can tell you.

My dubious VHS of NYR was a little fuzzy, and something had gone wrong with the sound, all of which added to the scuzzy feel of the film. Entertaining though it was, this was not a film I had planned to revisit anytime soon. Thanks to that same cult-enthusiast who made the trip to buy dodgy videos from dodgier characters, however, revisit it we did.

Our small but perfectly formed film collective took a trip into the seedy side of 1980's New York, and were thoroughly entertained throughout. Some of the more lurid scenes made me feel like I was watching a sex scene in the company of my parents, but not to worry. Francesco De Masi's thumping score stands up as a great example of Italian funk scoring, and the film has some of the most peculiar plot points I've seen outside of a traditional giallo.

Things I've learned from THE NEW YORK RIPPER

1) The rich are unequivocally sexual deviants
2) Never trust a man with two fingers missing from his left hand.
3) If you use a Donald Duck voice when talking to your terminally ill daughter on the phone, maybe try Mickey Mouse or maybe Goofy when you go out slicing up women.
4) In 1980's New York, radio DJ's were occasionally a bit flippant about murder.
5) Lucio Fulci's attitude to the fairer sex is a little dubious.

The second half of this big-apple-themed double hit, we witnessed the wonder that is ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK. Kurt Russell is a badass. That is all.

Thoughts on Cloverfield

Cloverfield's viral marketing campaign of last year threatened to choke any hope of living up to the hype, but I was pleased to find that the film itself does rise above it's hype-fuelled origins.

I was completely captivated for the whole duration (which admittedly is a short 87 minutes). The main criticisms of Cloverfield have been that the cast are all stock pretty-types and that documenting the event would rest roughly third on the "to do" list, after saving one's ass and maybe finding a McDonalds that is still open. I think both of these quibbles are linked to each other, in that the much-talked-about Youtube generation demographic (who tend to be the young and the beautiful) are most likely to document anything in their lives and put it on the internet, be it a boil on their arse or a massive monster tearing New York a new one.

I thought it was pretty amusing that Nokia seem to be the go-to guys in the event of mass hysteria (seriously, when have you ever had a mobile phone battery that works straight out of the pack? And while we're on the subject of batteries, where the hell did Rob get that camcorder battery? Maybe the battery is made with super-secret ingredients from the bottom of the sea, the procurement of which disturbed that gigantic beastie... just a thought)

The main feeling I got from Cloverfield was a palpable sense of tension throughout, and it's very rare that I find myself that involved in the action. When the film comes out on DVD (reportedly as early as April) it will have a space reserved on the "IN THE EVENT OF A MAJOR DISASTER, WE'RE ALL FUCKED" shelf alongside Right At Your Door and Threads.

I will have vengeance...

A few quick words on the subject of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.

We caught this on the preview weekend, and I have to say that my previous reservations were unfounded. Whilst not the biggest fan of musicals, I have to say that Tim Burton's 'Bava with ballads' as he described it is an absolute joy.

I was concerned about the much-maligned "Sing-talking", but I soon got used to it. Aside from a couple of numbers involving the secondary cast that I
felt fell a little flat, the songs are very impressive and serve to lighten what is an extremely dark tale. All these factors are a given for any viewer who has performed even the most scant amount of research before watching the film. I lost count of the number of people who fled for the doors when it became clear that spoken dialogue wasn't going make much of an appearance, and for those unfortunates I have no sympathy. Do your research people...

What was quite interesting was that there seemed to be no walkouts on account of the bloodletting - and make no mistake, this film is bloody. Not since the likes of Switchblade Romance has the red stuff flowed in such abundance in a mainstream multiplex. Once again, any criticism of the levels of gore on display beggars belief - when a film's main plot points include murder (in particularly nasty fashion via a straight razor) and cannibalism, it's safe to say you can expect a certain level of unpleasantness. As a seasoned horror fan, even I was taken aback by the first kill.

Now the film has been left to settle for a few days, the effectiveness of Burton's latest has become apparent. The smog and grit of old London is captured beautifully, so much so that you can almost smell it. Burton's trademark ghoulish humour is also in full effect, particularly in a slaughter montage set to a jaunty melody.

In all a fine addition to Burton's body of work and a return to form.

Now, I think I might go and get me a nice meat pie...

More Cronenberg...

Recently I got around to watching THE BROOD, one of several early Cronenberg films I picked up a while back.

It's one of the few films by the Canadian director that I had never seen (I'm ashamed to say) and I was not disappointed.

Where else can you find mutant children and Oliver Reed as a demented psychotherapist? I mean, would you trust Olly with your nearest and dearest?

Nothing too profound on this one, just a fine example of DC's early work.

Eastern Promises (David Cronenberg, 2007)

As is usual in the arena of the mainstream multiplex, the intelligent and interesting tend to be dwarfed by the big, the sensationalist and, above all, the stupid.

Admittedly, Eastern Promises has been around for a few weeks, and I somehow hadn't found the time to see it. What with being in Rome for two weeks in October at the film festival (reports to follow) and then the inevitable catch up on return, cinemagoing had fallen by the wayside a little. I still need to plan a jaunt over to Bradford this week to see the restored digital presentation of Hammer's Dracula...

So, yesterday was the last day at our local to catch David Cronenberg's latest. Being a fan of his work for many years ( I still vividly remember watching Videodrome and Dead Ringers on BBC2's sorely missed Moviedrome with Alex Cox) I've been especially impressed with his films of late. A History of Violence and, to a lesser extent, Spider navigated the mainstream to deliver Cronenberg's trademarks in the guise of genre thrillers. This tactic of using genre as a delivery method for the director's agenda is a regular technique of another HF favourite Takashi Miike, and Cronenberg has got it down to a fine art. To that end, Eastern Promises is another triumph from the (former) master of body horror.

I'm not one for plot spoilers, and so I won't break that tradition, but suffice to say that there are plot points in this film that I did not see coming. Viggo Mortensen is a revelation as Nikolai, driver for members of the Russian Mafia in London. Following on from his amazing turn in A History of Violence, he exudes an intensity that puts many actors to shame. Equally dependable here are Vincent Cassel and Naomi Watts, the latter with an English accent that is flawless. With many recent disappointing UK releases, it is refreshing to see such a riveting, intelligent film outside of a film festival. It's also the first film in a long while that has made it onto the DVD wants list...