Similarities to Deliverance
*This has minor spoilers for both movies, beware*
Okay, first of all, of course, thematically they are similar. Everyday men get put into an impossible situation and have to let instinct and survival take over to get out alive. But there were many similarities in the details too. Recreation was both groups' intent: a boxing match or a canoing trip. In Deliverance, when they go under the bridge and the little boy is standing on it with his banjo swinging, that mirrors in Judgement night when the boy is swinging on the swingset outside the housing project. Also, the constant talking about Emilio Estevez's character's wife and kid is like Ed Gentry's in Deliverance. Also, near the end of JN when it looks like the henchman Rhodes is about to kill Mike, he instead falls dead, shooting the ground. This is just like in Deliverance when Ed had climbed the cliff and the hillbilly was about to shoot him but shot the ground and died instead. Finally, the wounds sustained by the characters are the same. In both movies, one winds up dead, one with a leg wound, one with a stomach wound, and one more or less OK. So, what do you think, all coincidences, or some deliberate homages to Deliverance?