Stag Night of the Dead Reviewed

Stag Night of the Dead (2010)
Directed by Napoleon Jones (Neil Jones)

Tom Hanks never had a bachelor party like this. Dean is getting married tomorrow, and douchey best man Marky has arranged for an un-toppable bachelor party. This British zombedy is the story of six buds and their hired “stag night” entertainment (read: a stripper), who find themselves the latest willing victims in a game of Zomball. The film starts out pretty slow (which is not a good sign for a movie with a trim 80-minute running time), as we peek in on Dean hanging upside down, naked, getting whipped by the above-mentioned stripper. The opening setting, coupled with the movie’s promo art, had me a bit concerned that this would be yet another Zombie Strippers knock off. Fortunately, this is not the case.

Once the mid-day nudy bar debauchery comes to an end, the gang, stripper in tow, set off to a military complex, where they are greeted and instructed on the rules of Zomball (at this point, the film‘s pace picks up considerably). Essentially, in a post-zombie-infected world, you can pay money to hunt zombies in a controlled environment. Kinda like laser tag with the undead. This idea evokes a bit of The Running Man or Death Race 2000, in that it’s people doing fucked up shit for sport or game, and it seems to be acceptable.

The rules of Zomball are recounted to the players several times, the most important of which: Never humiliate a zombie. Whatever that means. And for the number of times this rule is reiterated, it never really comes full circle. Sure, our rowdy bunch of partiers hard end up humiliating some zombies…but it never really seems as big a deal as the rule would indicate. Despite this, and the slow beginning, the movie is pretty enjoyable. The characters are likable (when they are supposed to be) and annoying or hate-able (when called for). The stripper character is fleshed out (no, not in a nudity way) far more than most strippers in low-budget horror flicks are. Of course, there is the token sideways-hatted guy that speaks mostly in slang, who refers to himself often in the third person as DJ Ronny (think a British Loopz from Detour). DJ Ronny is good for a few laughs, though, and is the catalyst for some of the film’s funnier moments--Zomboobs and a Zomblow job.

And the makeup and special effects? Pretty damn good. There’s a scene in particular where the Flounder-like character, replete in a “This is my drinking shirt” shirt, gets smashed between the gates as they are closing, right as a zombie shoves his arm through the back of his head and out his mouth. The arm coming through this guy’s head is clearly CG, but it’s good enough that it doesn’t detract from the death or garner any laughs. You are still focused on the fact that this guy just had a zombie’s arm shoved through the back of his head. Certainly miles ahead of anything I might see on SyFy on a Saturday night (though I do genuinely love those made-for-SyFy joints).

These days, when video store shelves (figuratively! I know no one goes to the video store any more) are overflowing with dime-a-dozen, direct-to-video zombie rampages, you could do a hell of a lot worse than to support Stag Night of the Dead.

Zombies on the Rampage

I read a review in a fairly recent issue of Fangoria of some new low-budget zombie film. The review began with the following lines: “I hate zombie movies. I hate saying I hate zombie movies.” This was the reviewer’s way of saying that he has grown bored with the zombie sub-genre in the past six years, since the Dawn of the Dead remake and “The Walking Dead” comic renewed interest in reanimated corpses. At least they renewed interest with the masses. Us horror hounds have always known that zombies were awesome, and it didn’t take these breakout works to prove it (though I do love them both).

This review kind of bothered me. I mean, the movie being reviewed may have sucked (I don’t even remember what it was called). And we have all seen our fair share of crappy zombie movies to come out in the last half decade. But seriously, that is not going to deter me from continuing to check out the ones that look good, even if the genre *is* saturated. Just last year I watched and LOVED Dead Snow, and the other night I finally got around to watching Flight of the Living Dead--fun as hell. Granted, for every one of those enjoyable zombie movies, there’s a The Wickeds or a Day of the Dead 2. But still….remember how fun Dead & Breakfast was? And I would never want to dissuade someone from making the next Hide and Creep.

Maybe this guy was one of those movie-goers bemoaning all the post-Scream slashers that came out eleven years ago (of which I certainly saw my fair share of crappy ones…but I was just thankful that people were making slasher movies again). And I’m sure he now “hates vampire movies” and “hates saying he hates vampire movies.” And maybe he‘s right. But this automatically, and unfairly, crosses out all the great flicks that may come out dealing with any of these commonly-tread horror tropes.

I love zombie movies. I love saying I love zombie movies. Like many of you, I’ve loved them for twenty-ish years, ever since I saw the Tom Savini Night of the Living Dead remake in seventh grade. And I will continue to love every zombie movie (and slasher movie and vampire movie and whatever else becomes popular next year) that is made well, and with care and affection from the filmmaker. But who knows, maybe the movie being reviewed just sucked.