Reviewed by: Eric R. Lowther
Posted by: Root Rot
Stag Night of the Dead (2010)
Written/Directed by: Neil Jones for Zomball Films
Hey kids, it’s Eric R. Lowther, aka biguglyhairyscary with a review of the 2010 zomcom (fuuuuuuuck… *sigh*) “Stag Night of the Dead”. This little indie movie has garnered a lot of comparison to “Shaun of the Dead”, and while it certainly does have its moments the only real comparisons I can draw are the zombies and a Brit cast. And so, the synopsis…
The zombie apocalypse is just getting warmed up the world over, a result of mutated strains of Bird Flu, but it hasn’t come to the fore enough to prevent a group of guys from throwing a bachelor party, or, stag night, for their friend on the day before his impending nuptials. As the movie opens, we find the groom, Dean, hung from his ankles with only a pair of athletic shoes on his feet and a hand puppet hiding his manhood while a stripper, Candy, whips him in front of his assembled, drunken friends. There’s T.C., a fun-loving Tourettes sufferer and Sanjay, the quiet one that spends virtually the entire movie on his cell phone talking to his young son. Ronny is the hip-hop pretender and group goofball, Mikey is the man-whore smart-ass and Gordon, a very uptight, prim, proper and British sort of fellow rounds out the group.
Now, many world governments are starting to lose the battle to keep knowledge of the zombies from the masses. We learn this from TV reporter “Georgina Romero” (oh, come on, you knew there had to be at least one of these fucking references in here). But, as with any war, there are always profiteers. Enter Mr. Ree and his “Zomball” company. Under the guise of researching the plague and formulating ways to combat it, Mr. Ree’s biggest thrill is in allowing groups to come to an old military base he’s appropriated to participate in “Zomball”, a paintball-style game where the well-paying customers are given weapons that fire bolts of electricity and set loose on the base to fight zombies. This is where the “Stag Night” meets “of the Dead” as the group drags Dean off for an afternoon of male bonding over beer, a stripper and zombie assaults. Upon arrival, the group is briefed by Mr. Ree and his assistant, the pint-sized Mr. Big (played by Brian Wheeler. I mention this ‘cause this guy was a fuckin’ Ewok. This info may be helpful for those of you that play the various “7 Degree” games…). Here they are given their electric rifles and the rules of the game. Rule 1) Stay together, Rule 2) watch for charging stations for the rifles, and Rule 3) never, ever humiliate a zombie or risk bringing the game to an instant halt. With the rules in place and Dean dressed in his rented wedding suit (all his best buds seemed to forget to bring his street clothes from the strip club), they leave Candy behind and go off into the base to hunt the zombies.
Hey Kids! Fun fact; did you know that all a film maker has to do is have zombies and a few British accents in his movie and he will instantly get compared to Shaun of the Dead, regardless of the film’s quality, plot and characters? This may not seem like a big deal to you, but movies have been doing this since there were enough movies made to influence other movies to be made. Saying a movie is made “in the spirit of” or “in the vein of” another popular movie will get it noticed by fans of the original (and often better) movie. This is often enough to at least get a rental out of fans of the referenced movie and may be enough on its own merit to get someone to buy it if the price is right sight-unseen. Like taglines, being able to link your film to another, successful one in its genre is cheap (and on more than one level) advertising. More on the whole “Shaun” deal later…
Anyway…
The entire confines of the base are under video surveillance, and Mr. Ree watches from his command center while our heroes sally forth to do battle with the undead hordes. They’ve been told their weapons won’t “kill” a zombie, only stun them for five minutes or so. What they weren’t told is that their weapons take twice as long as that to recharge. They get through the first batch of the dead (featuring a bicycle-riding zombie and an old woman using a walker) only to experience the thrill of running out of charge in their weapons and narrowly avoiding being mobbed by the horde. We get a lot of interplay between these he-men during the fight, most of it fairly well-written and acted, and we continue with this after their first successful sortie. The last zombie to appear before the boys break for beer and manly bonding, though, is a beautiful and fairly fresh example of undead womanhood, so much so that it’s love at first sight for our friend Ronny. He tries to convince the others not to shoot her but, being that they are men with weapons in their hands and a license to shoot, they do anyway. While the group goes back to the barracks to recharge their weapons and livers, Ronny slips away. He finds his zombie love and releases her so they can “talk”. The conversation is a bit one sided as you can imagine but ends predictably enough.
While this is going on, we get more interplay between the rest of the characters and we start to get more on the lecherous Mikey, the gigolo of the group. Dean and Candy, the stripper (you remember her, right?) have separated from the group after Mikey reminds her that she was paid to strip for and then fuck the groom. Dean, being the proper and courtly English gentleman, balks at this. He is getting married, after all, and doesn’t believe in that sort of thing. However, we can all see the slowly kindling fire between the two and they end up going off into the woods to sit and talk about Dean’s upcoming marriage. While the stripper and the gentleman discuss Dean’s relationships with his friends and fiancé and the rest of the boys get their drink on, we find that Ronny (definitely not the sharpest knife in the drawer by the way) didn’t lock the gate behind them when he freed the woman…
So now the zombies are on the loose. Dean and Candy get attacked in the woods at the same time the rest get besieged at the barracks. The two barely make it back in time to get inside the barracks to hole up with the rest. Now you would think that they’re in the barracks with their weapons, beer and a stripper. This is pretty much the dream of any zombie apocalypse warrior, right? Well, as anyone reading this should probably already know your success in surviving a zombie uprising is dictated only by the weakest link of the group. Here, the weakest link turns out to be T.C. who, in his rush to get a weapon spills a beer into the electrical works and shuts down the weapons charging station. This forces the group to escape from one room of the barracks to another that has already been compromised by more of the dead to get the power back on. Here we also discover that one of the men has a hidden past, one that is quite convenient to the current predicament. I won’t spoil it for you, but this reveal comes off quite nicely both in how it’s written and acted, enough for me to give a pass to the heavy hand of plot for ushering in such an element so late in the game. During their heroic Handy Manny efforts to repair the electricity though, Mikey shows even more of his true colors and bolts, leaving his friends behind for a chance at escape. This works just about as well as you would think it would, but with a twist.
In the movie’s mythos, when a human first turns into a zombie they still have varying levels of their intelligence and memories. Over the course of time they lose these and become the shambling, moaning dead. Unfortunately for Mikey, Ronny of all people is one of the lucky ones to retain his faculties. In fact, they seem to have been heightened somewhat in the process. Ronny has become a leader among the dead now, and along with having the base’s guards and staff slaughtered by the zombies he’s also taken Mikey prisoner. If the group wants him back, they’ll have to come and get him. While all this goes on, Candy has been knocked unconscious in the battle inside the barracks. Dean, T.C. and Gordon decide to rescue Mikey and leave Candy in the care of Sanjay. The three intrepid heroes go off to rescue their friend, Candy lays on a dirty mattress on the floor and Sanjay paces around with his phone glued to his ear trying to get his young son to put his mother on the phone. The zombies do get in through sheer carelessness on the part of the distracted Sanjay, but Candy awakens in time to save them both and formulate an escape plan. Sanjay gets in the limo to go find help while Candy, for some reason, stays behind to fend off the zombies. Sanjay is spectacularly unsuccessful and Candy disappears under a mob of undead before we cut back to our rescue party. Dean, Gordon and T.C. know they’re walking into a trap laid by Ronny, but once they see Mikey tied to a pole with Ronny and his equally undead love standing with him they know they have no choice but to step into it. Here we learn of Mikey’s final transgression, and it’s one most of us saw coming from the opening scene of the film. Still, it’s well-played, and the rescue attempt succeeds only to have Mikey and his overbearing sense of self preservation blow it all.
From this point on the movie seems to shift gears from zomcom (fuuuuuuuck…) to 80’s ensemble action movie with the reappearance of Candy and the swarm of zombies getting into full swing. It’s dumb fun and the characters still remain true to their concepts, but I was expecting more from it. I like the silly 80’s uber action movies, don’t get me wrong. But here it just seemed like it was the easy way out. Points for effort in their chosen direction, but I would’ve liked to have seen things go a little more true to the style of the rest of the film. We wrap things up with the predictable 80’s action/horror movie ending involving self-destruct sequences and just-in-time escapes, and they even toss in a twist into the ending that, while funny for what it was, we also saw coming.
So now for the nuts and bolts of the thing. The movie is obviously shot on digital, and while the filming, angles and lighting are all passable to well-done when the camera is obviously mounted and still, the camera work gets shoddy when we’re in the scenes where the camera was obviously being held in hand. It’s not terrible, but it’s enough that you notice it and that means it’s enough to take you out of the story. I understand that tripods are cumbersome to lug around and that steadycams cost a lot of money, but in many of the shots there doesn’t seem to be a reason for holding the camera since the shot and angles don’t really necessitate it. This style doesn’t add to a film for me, action or otherwise, unless the filming is being portrayed as being done by one of the characters. The movie does boast some decent physical effects, and they are good enough to both make obvious and upstage the poor to mid-level quality CGI that pokes its head in once in awhile (Random thought; with all the technological advancements in CGI, why is it that Hollywood can almost never make a blood splatter that looks real?). The weapon mock-ups looked good, a cross between the bullpup-style rifles favored by most European militaries with a dash of Buck Rogers thrown in, and the CGI lightning bolts weren’t bad, really. The score and popular music used were well done, with the contemporary music used in just the right spots to enhance the presentation. Acting wise I didn’t find any glaring problems (except perhaps in a few scenes with Mr. Ree where the lines came out a little wooden), and checking out some of their pedigrees I can see why. Many of the actors here are quite accomplished in European genre/indie films. None of them seemed a stranger to the camera and each worked well in the ensemble, enough to make me believe (for the most part) that their characters really were in this situation.
So, is it any good? First, you have to like British humor. The examples here aren’t as dry as in other productions from across the pond, but it’s still enough that Americans that need their yuck-yucks spoon fed may not get as much out of it. I will say if you like zomcoms (fuuuuuuck…) in general then it’s definitely worth a watch. The characters are suitably drawn and funny, and I’m happy that they didn’t make Touretes sufferer T.C. into a constantly insult and filth-spewing stereotype that we so commonly see in films. There are outbursts, but they’re usually more subtle and well-played. None of the characters come off as two-dimensional and each actor seems comfortable in their character’s skin. The zombies are good to well-done, though like in many indie productions it’s obvious there are “hero” zombies and others that were just given a lick and a promise before being sent out into the camera. The story isn’t asking much of you, and as long as you give back that same courtesy I think you’ll be entertained.
As to more on the comparison with Shaun of the Dead, there’s really very little to compare here. Yes, they both have zombies. Yes, they both have all Brit casts. Yes, they are both zomcoms (fuuuuuuck…). However, Shaun played out in the world at-large and made points about how most people were already zombies anyway with their predictable lives, jobs and relationships. Yes, Shaun of the Dead had a message. Hope you caught that the first time around. Stag Night is just mindless zombie fun. There’s no message here. Now, that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t pretend to have one in the first place. Additionally, Shaun was much more about Shaun and Ed with the other characters just kind of orbiting them. Stag Night is a much more cooperative affair among the ensemble even though it’s clear which characters the story is supposed to center on. Both also are clearly British in their humor and presentation, but where Simon Pegg and Nick Frost can be funny while completely alone on camera most of the actors in Stag Night need the ensemble to play off of to really shine. Okay, enough about that.
Zomball is going a little different with releasing its movie. As of this writing, the DVD hasn’t been released yet and doesn’t appear on Amazon or Netflicks. However, for a cool $1.99 you can stream the movie from their website, www.stagnightofthedead.com as well as pre-order the DVD when they do decide to release it. I would recommend streaming the movie from the website first before you consider buying (or at the very least watching the first five minutes as a free preview), though I would also recommend that after purchasing it you wait 30 minutes or so before trying to watch to allow the code to activate. I had several problems getting through the first half of the movie as it kept freezing after five or so minutes asking me if I wanted to buy the viewing. It was quite frustrating, but when I e-mailed the site about the technical difficulties I received a personal, not canned, reply within minutes so I won’t hold it against them.
Well, that’s all for me. Make sure you’re checking out all the other goodness that the Witch’s Hat has to offer. We’re multi-media here, folks, so we’ve got stuff for your eyes and your ears; reviews, articles, videos and, of course, the Witch’s Hat podcast. So with a tip of my hat to Mr. Rot, this has been biguglyhairyscary saying, see ya’, kids.
Related Witch’s Hat links
Other Witch’s Hat movie reviews
Question or comments
The Witch’s Hat Voice Mail 313 444 2611
thewitchshatblog@gmail.com
