Release Date: August 2, 2011
Studio: Glass Eye Pix / Dark Sky Films
Genre: Horror / Suspense
Rated: R    1 hr 38 mins

Stake Land

August 6, 2011

Reviewer: Rottenbucher

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Just when the post-apocalyptic genre couldn’t take on another film about nomads, cannibals and cultists, leave it to an indie to throw vampires into the mix.  Welcome to Stake Land.  This isn’t Twilight on wheels; this is The Road with fangs.

The orphaned Martin (Gossip Girl’s Connor Paolo) has teamed up with the gruff Mister (Nick Damici) in a world besieged by a vampire pandemic.  Along the road to the rumored promised land/town New Eden, Mister and Martin encounter a variety of vampires, a vicious religious cult called The Brotherhood, a pregnant woman (Danielle Harris, Hatchet II, Halloween franchise) and a bruised and battered nun (Kelly Mcgillis, Top Gun).

Stake Land is a derivative of just about every post-apocalyptic film.  It echoes The Road with bits of I Am Legend and even 28 Days Later thrown in. But in a shocking way, Stake Land outshines its influences.  Instead of just giving us a tour through a dismal, barren wasteland with creatures hot on the characters heels, we get a road-trip through communities that have held out and survived the vampires only to be destroyed by The Brotherhood.  Instead of watching the decline of the family unit, Stake Land takes it’s orphaned and ostracized characters and puts them in a home on wheels. Martin’s coming of age is displayed with great care and class as he learns to not only fight and hate, but to love and trust in a completely believable fashion. Each character is extremely likeable and the audience really hopes they all make it to New Eden. 

Enough with the mushy praises, Stake Land is also a horror/apocalyptic film at heart. What it doesn’t have in extreme stylized violence and gore (even though there are heaps), it has in character development.  Something the genre lacks as a whole.  The Road is meant to bum you out with its bleakness and leave you wanting more tension and violence.  Stake Land is meant to crush when things don’t pan out for the main characters, not root for the villains and the monsters like so many others in the genre.

Have you seen Stake Land before? Yes. There really is nothing original about the film or the story.  And with vampires being so chic it’s enough to make the horror buffs groan and approach with extreme caution.  But genre-starlet Danielle Harris performs outside of the usual genre limitations (i.e. she isn’t a scream queen / final girl for a change) and Damici’s Mister is a hard-ass with a heart. Stake Land has so much character and personality that it actually will appeal to non-horror and apocalyptic fans too.

Director Jim Mickle just got called up from the minors and hit big.  With only a short and the zero-budget Mullbery Street, Stake Land comes across as a genre piece from a seasoned filmmaker.  While it will never compete with likes of trailblazers like The Road Warrior or Night of the Living Dead, Stake Land easily proves to be one of the post-apocalyptic genre’s finest moments that is soaked with an unusual amount of personality.  Highly recommended.

CAST:

Nick Damici:  Mister
Connor Paolo:  Martin
Michael Cerveris:  Jebadia
Kelly McGillis:  Sister
Danielle Harris:  Belle
Sean Nelson:  Willie

DIRECTOR:

Jim Mickle