Stag Night Of The Dead – Preview Screening
Since winning Stag Night of the Dead tickets the other week I’ve been getting excited for my back-to-back weekends of Invasion of the Night Quite Dead trailer filming, the Stag Night of the Dead screening and after party and Fright Fest. I managed to slope off work early on the Friday and get down to Covent Garden for pre-drinks and to pick up tickets.
After getting off the tube at Leicester Square I wandered over to the Verve Bar to hopefully meet some of the cast, crew and fellow Twitter winners and pick up tickets. I was heading down early on my own as my hot zombie ‘date’ for the evening wasn’t finishing work until later and I was just meeting them at the cinema.
Having never been before I was a little unsure of where it was but easily spotted it right on the corner. No GPS to tell me lies this time. I went into the bar and ordered a pint of lager, which I thought the barmaid said was £4.02. A bit random but not out of the ordinary for London prices. I was most surprised when I received more than £2.50 back in change, the Verve bar it seems has an excellent 50% off between 5-8pm, so while a normal pint is about £5 getting a few acoholic beverages in before hand wasn’t going to break the bank.
While getting served at the bar I saw another lone gentleman so decided to go chat to him. Not because I do that kind of thing often you understand but because he was chatting with barstaff showing his ticket confirmation print-out so I assumed he was also here for the film showing. Making a move towards him to catch his attention he obviously saw me coming and started to wander around the bar away from me. After a complete circuit I finally caught up with him and confirmed he was here for SNOTD too.
The guy I met was called Daniel and was an extra in Stag Night of the Dead for 10 days on set. He’d seen nothing of the finished product and was looking forward to seeing himself on the big screen. A few of his friends who were also involved as extras were travelling down in a limo but he’d booked a hotel to have more time in London.
Also during this time I was supposed to meet @ArghZombies but as my phone doesn’t tell me when I get mentions on Twitter and neither of us knew what the other looked liked (I was clean shaven and had a haircut since last week, still fat though) we never quite managed to find each other in the bar.
I had good fun talking with Daniel and as his friends arrived I went to the Odeon in Covent Garden, where the film was showing, to meet my friend and get in. We met up and after buying something to munch took our seats. I overheard the girl behind me talking about winning tickets on Twitter and struck up a brief conversation with @marysiak. It was only brief because I took the huff with her not following me back on Twitter :D
As it turned out the Twitter winners were sitting together (except @tlpayne82 who I unfortunately never got to meet) and it wasn’t long before @ArghZombies turned up. Introductions were made and the introduction to the film was made by the SNOTD guys.
Then the film began and the atmosphere was great. I’ve never been to a film where those involved attended and despite normally abhorring people talking or whooping during the film, it was a lot of fun when people first saw themselves on screen and all their friends let out a cheer.
You can read my full review of Stag Night of the Dead and what I thought of it.
After the show everybody headed back to the Verve Bar for aftershow drinks, where the film was shown again as well as much drinking, dancing, singing and partying.
I met another zombie enthusiast and extra @keironwaites who knows David Moody the writer of Autumn and he made a wild claim of having seen every zombie movie ever. Unfortunately I’d had too many drinks by this point to really test him on his knowledge so why not Twitter him some questions for me :)
About half eleven I decided to call it to go to a friends birthday party and despite my best efforts never did manage to find @ArghZombies again. If anybody has any wild stories from after then please leave them in the comments or if you have any pics you want to share let me know.
