You got vampires in my zombie movie! You got a zombie movie on my vampires! Delicious… #OldAssCommercialReferences
If I’m completely honest, I’m kind of exhausted when it comes to zombies. Even The Walking Dead, a show that has its problems but has always entertained, I have not watched for a couple of years. Ultimately, the zombie tropes are pretty limiting, so it’s hard to say something new when telling these stories. Now, I know what you’re thinking, “Isn’t this movie called STAKE Land? As in stakes that are used to kill vampires? It’s not called Indiscriminate Blunt Object Used to Smash Rotting Skulls (and also Bullets) Land!” Well, my observant friend, you are correct. Stake Land is for sure a vampire movie, except that it is most definitely, without a doubt, actually a zombie movie. The zombies are called vampires, and they sort of are vampires, but its still a zombie movie. As I describe the plot, you decide if I’m wrong.
The film is set in a post-apocolyptic wasteland, where hordes of mindless (*cough*) vampires roam around aimlessly, eating people. A rag-tag group of survivors (teenage orphan, Martin; grizzled anti-hero badass, Mister; former nun, Sister; young pregnant woman, Belle; token black dude, Willie) has to navigate the countryside, scavenging what they can and protecting each other from the vampires. They seek out “Eden”, a rumored safe haven in Canada, but along the way they discover that mankind are the real monsters. You know, your classic vampire story.
So, yeah, this is a thinly disguised zombie flick, but you know what? Its a pretty damn good zombie flick. The acting is really solid, better by far than most of the movies we review. The budget is clearly pretty tiny, but that doesn’t affect the great pacing and action. And like all good zombie stories, no one is safe. In fact, the movie can be downright brutal at times, but it doesn’t feel nihilistic, which is important for me to stay engaged. I don’t need the promise of a happy ending, but there has to be at least a sliver of hope in the filmmakers’ worldview. Stake Land threads that needle pretty well.
There’s a good chance I never would have given this movie a chance if it had been more forthright about the type of story it was telling. Despite the bait and switch, I’m glad I watched it. It doesn’t revolutionize the zombie genre, but it handles it about as well as you can.
Wait, are two of the principal characters actually named “Sister” and “Mister”? Maybe I take back the nice things I said in the second half of the review…
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