Review for Stag Night

If I had to think of one word to sum up this film, that word would be 'cliché'. You could literally take this film and cut it back together from scenes from other films: The Hills Have Eyes, Wolf Creek, Descent, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Hole, Saw, every single slasher film in existence has been plagiarised for this film.
Four friends are on a stag night to celebrate Mike's last night of freedom. After being thrown out of a strip club, they decide to take the subway to their next bar. Halfway the train stops and they are forced to get off and walk to the next station. In the subway they stumble across a group of feral psychotics who are only interested in hunt8ing and killing anything alive. One by one the group are hunted and killed by these almost mutant-like people all carrying samurai swords. Where did they get these blades? Who knows? Where did they learn to wield them like Highlander or Blade? Who knows? But they are very good at slicing and dicing through their victims and soon Mike's last night of freedom, could instead be his last night alive.
I have a big problem with this film. No, not because it stumbles through clichés like it is ticking off points from the 'Idiot's Guide to Making a Slasher Film'. It's not because of the excessive and unnecessary gore or even the horrible, horrible acting by everyone involved that sees one of the girls after witnessing some of the most disgusting violence I have ever witnessed actually scream in terror... over a cockroach... actually it is all that, but what is much worse is the fact that nothing is explained. Much like Wolf Creek, nothing is revealed about why these 'people' are killing or why no one knows about it, writer/director Peter A. Dowling just sets up the scene and throws the characters in without explaining anything. Now, we could argue that Tobe Hooper did the same with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and this is true and if that film had just been released I'd be asking the same questions, but at least there is a semblance of motive behind those killings. This is just brutal, unentertaining violence. And I think that is the problem I had with this film, it is simply not entertaining. Dowling has simply just created a number of characters at random, given them the most basic of characterisations and then just released them into a film with no thought given to progression or feeling. The final twenty minutes make no sense, no sense whatsoever and will make you wonder at what point did the final remaining characters become Bruce Lee?
Stag Night is a great example of how to make a film with no imagination as you rip off every film that has come before it. I can't wait for Dowling's next film which will no doubt be about a kid using a car to go back in time. No similarities there at all!