Stake Land (2010)

Title: Stakeland (2010)

Director: Jim Mickle

Cast: Connor Paolo, Danielle Harris, Kelly McGillis, Nick Damici

Review:

New horror directors, there’s a slew of them out there, but the question is: are they worth a damn? Do they have what it takes to form a part of the elite? Will they ever stand proudly next to the likes of John Carpenter, George Romero, Tobe Hooper or Wes Craven? I always find it interesting to see new horror directors emerge, because let’s face it, horror films are currently going through an anemic state. To me, American horror films simply don’t have the guts and gore they used to, they seem a bit restrained when compared to horror films of the 70’s and 80’s. The same can be said about action films, but that’s a whole other blog post. So when a film like Stake Land comes along, where its getting pretty decent reviews all around, my hopes are raised. Some reviewers are going as far as calling Stake Land “The best American horror film” they have seen in a long time. Are comments like these a log of hogwash? Or is Stake Land deserving of such praise?

Story is fairly simple. A young man named Martin has just lost his entire family in a vampire attack. It’s a good thing that the mysterious drifter known only as “Mister” suddenly appears and saves Martin from dying in the attack as well. Mister decides to ‘adopt’  Martin along his travels through post apocalyptic America and teach him everything he knows about killing vampires. There’s talk of a vampire free area called “New Eden” and Mister and Martin are headed there. Along the way, the encounter a couple of freaks, make a couple of new friends, and encounter a dangerous religious cult. Will they ever make it to New Eden alive?

One thing I liked about Stake Land is that it effectively manages to sustain the dreadful atmosphere of a post apocalyptic world very well. It achieved this by shooting most of the film on out door locations, a very smart move when making a post apocalyptic film, all you have to do is find an abandoned building and shoot your film there. The landscape on this one is grim. If I had to compare Stake Land to any other films, I’d say it’s a mix between The Road (2009) and 28 Days Letter (2002). And much like 28 Days Later, this film is more about the characters that inhabit the film than the vampire action or gore. In fact, for long stretches of film, you won’t even see any vampires. The creatures of the night function more as a backdrop to the story more than anything else.

Though the film does have some good looking vampires, and the make up effects are very well achieved, this isn’t a film made to impress you with it’s make up effects sequences or gore, Stake Land is more of a character driven film than anything else. The thing is that for a character driven film to work well, characters have to be interesting, they have to have something to say, the situations and dynamics amongst the characters have to be interesting enough to keep us hooked, or else you’ll simply end up with a boring movie. Stake Land arrives somewhere in between. It’s not the most exciting film ever made, but it has a winner with the character of ‘Mister’ portrayed by newcomer Nick Damici. Mister’s a vampire hunter/loner type with a heart of gold. He’s the kind of character that Mickey Rourke or Woody Harrelson would have been great at playing. In many ways, this one has the same dynamic seen in Zombieland (2009), with an older more experienced character serving as a father figure and teaching the younger kid how to survive in the mean old world.

Thematically speaking, this one is all about survival. You adapt and survive as best as you can or the world eats you up. The film also decides to make a comment on religion when Mister and Martin encounter a religious cult of freakazoids who seem to think that vampires were sent by God to make humanity pay for their sins. An idea similar to this one was presented in the independent zombie film called The Dead Next Door (1989). On that film a religious group of individuals decide to worship zombies as something sent by god instead of the zombies being enemies of humanity. My only real gripe with this movie is that in terms of plot and themes, Stake Land is very thin. It never goes past the survival mode. The film is simply about a group of people going from one place to the next, searching for a zombie-less place to live in, along the way they encounter the religious cult, they encounter a town that’s trying to re-establish a modicum of humanity; but that’s about it. The whole religious cult sub-plot is something that pops up half way through the middle of the film, and is then dropped. The film doesn’t have a strong theme to pull it together, in this sense; thematically speaking the film feels a bit disjointed. The film portrays religion as an evil in society, but it doesn’t go very deep into these themes either, it simply touches upon them briskly instead of really going for an exploration of it’s themes. 

Sadly, even though Mister is a fun character (loners always make entertaining characters in films like these), the film looks great, manages to maintain a great post-apocalyptic vibe to it and is well acted, Stake Land still manages to be a boring film. A vampire pops up every now and then, but nothing new or interesting is presented to us. Stake Land does a decent job of creating a dreadful place for its characters to inhabit, but fails at being an entertaining or engaging film. My guess is that they were purposely going for a deadly serious vibe, and they achieved it. But we must remember that deadly serious doesn’t have to equal boring, which I’m sad to say is this film mains problem. They needed to turn up the heat just a bit more. Take for example 28 Days Later, Stake Land’s biggest influence in my opinion. That film was about characters, it captured humanity pulling together in the midst of all the chaos. It presented us with characters that made an effort to show each other the warmth that the world they inhabited was not giving them; but heres one thing 28 Days Later never forgot: it was first and foremost a zombie film. It never forgot to give us that jolt of excitement that Stake Land forgot all about. Still, this is better than a lot of the crap that passes for horror nowadays. And does a couple of good moments here and there, unfortunately, it looses steam pretty early on. If you ask me, what this film managed to do was show that director Jim Mickle has promise, and that we need to see what he will come up with next. Hope it’s something as well made as Stake Land, but with a bit more excitement to it.

Finally, why is this movie getting so many good reviews? Honestly, the film is well made and all, but it’s not the “best American Horror film of the year” or a film you have got to see before you die or anything like they are making it out to be. I just think that horror fans are sick of Twilight, they where thirsty for a real vampire film. Films like Twilight  fail to deliver the goods, they fail to give horror fans what they want to see in a vampire film. And since Stake Land is the real deal as far as vampire films go and its a vampire movie with vicious bloodthirsty vampires instead of vampires that sparkle like diamonds when sunlight hits them, horror fans have embraced it with open arms. But the end all be all of vampire films this one isn’t.  

Rating: 3 ½ out of 5