Stag Night (DVD) Kip Pardue, Breckin Meyer, Vanessa Shaw NEW

The Descent goes to the Big Apple (and undergoes a gender change) in this effective mash-up of slasher flicks and subterranean horror. After accidentally getting off at an abandoned subway stop in the wee hours of the morning, four squabbling bachelor partiers and a pair of club dancers find themselves hounded by a trio of jabbering, garden tool-wielding cannibals (all of whom resemble comics legend Alan Moore after a rough weekend). Debuting writer-director Peter A. Dowling does a commendable job utilizing his squalid, ill-lit underground surroundings (many of which would be freaky even under optimum conditions), but his film could have benefited from more sympathetic characterizations, instead leaving such talented performers as Kip Pardue and Breckin Meyer with little to do but run, curse, and scream manfully. That minor speed bump aside, this remains a swift and fairly nasty horror film featuring a few moments of real suspense, some frenetically energetic camerawork, and one completely gnarly use of a track switcher as a finishing move.