Stake Land (2011)
By Roxanne Downer
The already crowded zombie genre has gained a new entry in Stake Land, an independent horror flick from sophomore director Jim Mickle. More precisely speaking, Mickle’s monsters, who walked off with the Midnight Madness Award at the 2010 Toronto Film Festival, are actually vampires. Only these don’t so much glitter as they do stumble about in the darkness, hungry for flesh.
The story opens as a teenage boy named Martin (Connor Paolo) is orphaned by one such bloodsucking creature that kills both of his parents and his infant sibling. A vampire hunter, known only as Mister (Nick Damici), steps in to dispatch the vamp and become Martin’s de facto protector. The two embark on a road trip–from the Southern states to a place further north called New Eden–avoiding the big cities where the vampire infestation is the worst and sticking to the back roads and small towns.
Along the way, they pick up a nun (yes, that Kelly McGillis), whose firsthand experience with post-apocalyptic brutality has threatened her faith; a tough but vulnerable pregnant girl (Danielle Harris); and a former Marine named Willie (Sean Nelson). They also get into an extended tussle with a group of religious fanatics called the Brotherhood. These nuts, headed up by the stereotypically named Jebediah (Fringe’s Michael Cerveris), believe that the vampires are a gift from God, sent to purify the earth. And they don’t look too kindly on Mister’s penchant for dispatching the angels of death.
There are also more foaming-at-the-mouth creatures than you can shake a wooden stake at. It’s a good thing, then, that Stake Land’s monsters are rendered with some considerable technique. As conceived of by makeup artists Brenna McGuire and Brian Spears, they lack the elegance and romanticism typically associated with vampires, never wax poetic about being undead, and don’t try to blend in among the humans. Not that they could. These vampires are dirty, bloody and white-eyed. Think Night of the Living Dead meets 30 Days of Night.
Stake Land is familiar in other ways. The story, co-written by Mickle and Damici, doesn’t blaze any trails not already covered by the likes of Cormac McCarthy’s dystopian epic, The Road. Okay, so the kid is older and these walking dudes head north instead of south. But there is even a mention (although no sightings) of cannibals. Throw in a little Zombieland, echoed in the voiceover storytelling by a virginal teen boy, and shades of television’s Jeremiah with its shared tumbleweed western aesthetic, and you’ve got the picture. It’s clear that these filmmakers have good taste in monster apocalypse movies, I just wish that they had done more to set their own apart from the pack.
A tighter plot could have helped bind together this interesting mix of characters. Mickle presents us with a fascinatingly grizzled crew–Mister, for example is the oft-seen archetype of the strong, silent hero, but Damici’s portrayal lends him a depth rarely seen–but lets them down by not giving them enough to do. Even New Eden, the purported destination of the road trip, feels more like a plot convention than a burning desire.
After a while, the movie starts to feel episodic and you wonder where this could possibly go next. And that’s when Stake Land begins to stumble along much like its vampires. By the end, there are plenty of wooden stakes but very few emotional ones.
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This Stake Land movie review is copyright 2009 Small World Marketing and Shane Rivers. This Stake Land review should not be reprinted without the permission of the copyright holders.
This movie review of Stake Land expresses the opinion of the author only. Other Stake Land movie reviews are available online, and some of those might or might not express different opinions on the movie. Like those other Stake Land movie reivews, this Stake Land review is intended for the entertainment and education of the reader. This Stake Land movie review is provided as is with no warranty or guarantee implied.
