Stake Land Film Review (2011)

1 hr. 38 mins.

Starring: Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Kelly McGillis, Sean Nelson, Danielle Harris, Michael Cerveris

Directed by: Jim Mickle

MPAA Rating: NR

Critic's Rating: ** 1/2 stars (out of 4 stars)

Well, the love affair with vampires and zombies continue to make a cinematic mark on the big screen. Furthermore, teen protagonists are a steady diet for this current ghoulish genre in writer-director Jim Mickle's pulsating post-apocalyptic vampire vehicle Stake Land. Mickle ("Mulberry Street") sinks his frothy fangs into a surprisingly solid and probing blood bath exposition dripping with gothic gore and a sensationalistic showcase of cynicism and introspection. Although challenging yet hardly original, Stake Land is a rousing take on the mayhem-filled vibrancy that nightmarish horrorfests are effectively conceived for the audience's corrosive curiosities.

Soundly, Stake Land can be deemed a "thinking man's" horror wasteland where the boundaries of destruction and disillusionment cross over in considerable, complex fashion. Mickle's adventurous direction and co-screenwriter Nick Damici (also the film's co-star) strikes a critical chord in portraying a seedy society where ruthless evil-minded cretins-cannibals, cult figures/religious fanatics, blood-sucking wanderers, etc.-make their usual rounds of terrifying turmoil. The film's surrealistic blood-soaking tendencies are redundant and recycled from many inspired motion pictures from its past as well as its contemporary blueprints. However, Stake Land manages to keep a delightful creative hold on its grim and cold-hearted hysterics.

The slight knock against Stake Land may be its familiar graphic territory that it explores so hauntingly. After all, we have seen previous innovative frightening fare that have revisited these same kind of thunderous themes before whether as wicked supernatural spoofs such as Shaun of the Dead and Zombieland or straight-laced boo-induced selections in 28 Days Later and I Am Legend. Still, the perverse presentation in Stake Land radiates a convincing landscape of blood-splashing angst where the symbolic decay of mankind is represented in the chewy mischievousness of zombie vampires out to suck the life out of our empty existences.

The premise is bleak for a chaotic America out of control. The U.S. government is perplexed about the rampage of vampire vermin controlling the streets. Sadly, the common citizens of American soil have perished at the hands of these zombie-like bloodsuckers at will. Only impressionable teen Martin (Connor Paolo from TV's "Gossip Girl") survives the attacking pack of vampires within his sordid surroundings. Fortunately for Martin he runs into an enthusiastic but weary vampire slayer curiously named Mister (Nick Damici). Now both Martin and Mister are engaged in a tug-of-war to combat these pesky blood-loving beasts as they head northward to Canada in search of a sanctuary known as "New Eden". Driving the stakes through the spines of these countless flesh-searching freaks is something that is rather tiresome for the tandem but they persist nevertheless.

Along their travels amid the bloodied bodies and dilapidated venues as they run rough shot through the heartland of America's ruins Martin and Mister encounter a few followers experiencing their share of desperation and detachment. The strays include a tortured nun named Sister Anna (Kelly McGillis), a black marine (Sean Nelson) and a pregnant girl (Danielle Harris). Interestingly, they form a familial bond as they tackle the unknown and unpredictability of their dire situation.

As if ducking and dodging the vicious zombie vampires was not enough excitement for the vulnerable group they must avoid the ranting madness of the Brethren-a radical Christian coalition that strongly believes that the vampire plague was God's answer to punishing the heathens and other non-believers that spoil the morals and faith of their philosophical outlook. The Brethren is led by the outspoken Jebediah (Michael Cerveris), an enemy to "sinners" everywhere.

Whether focusing on the extermination of rabid neck-biting nuisances or simply examining the malaise of man-made decadence and disorientation, Stake Land is resonate in its examination of societal breakdown and the search for order within one's psychological balance. Through traumatic lockdowns or clichéd blood-stained banality Mickle's horrifying narrative is unconventionally thought-provoking despite its bombastic B-movie boundaries. Thankfully the performances are not one-dimensional-something that is annoyingly typical in fright night fare of this magnitude. Stake Land demonstrates various flourishes of poignancy, scariness and guilty pleasure wonderment.

There is nothing fresh or distinctive here that one would not have realized from old standbys such as George Romero's Dawn of the Dead movie series. Regardless, Stake Land generates a worthy piercing tension that works effectively in an otherwise predictable goose bump genre that stabs and jabs routinely more often than not in the fantasy adventure/horror sweepstakes.