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How entertaining? ★★★★☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 11 June 2011
This a movie review of STAKE LAND. |
“Live free or die tryin’,” Mister (Nick Damici)
“Teenage vampire movies? On demand!” So exclaims King Arthur in the new advert. And here we have another vampire tale, with a teenager as the main protagonist; but before you stop reading, this is not like the Twilight twaddle. This is a different beast. Think The Road meets Bram Stoker. An indie-American Southern gothic-minimalist-horror. Sounds enticing right?
“Teenage vampire movies? On demand!” So exclaims King Arthur in the new advert. And here we have another vampire tale, with a teenager as the main protagonist; but before you stop reading, this is not like the Twilight twaddle. This is a different beast. Think The Road meets Bram Stoker. An indie-American Southern gothic-minimalist-horror. Sounds enticing right?
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Opening with Martin’s family brutally killed by the undead, including the shocking death of his baby sibling, we are launched into an Odyssey-like story as Martin’s rescuer, Mister, a vampire hunter, plans on taking them to the fabled New Eden – a supposedly safe haven from the menace that has swept the country. Along the way Mister trains him to survive as well as in combat. Echoes of The Road to Perdition is no bad thing, as a pseudo father-son bond builds. The film varies the lore up a little, making vampire chests tougher to shove some wood through, and the older vamps, “berserkers” require a blow to the base of the skull to finish them off. They also don’t disappear, but burn up leaving charred remains.
The boy may only be 15 or 16, and witnesses, like all great horror apocalypses, both the terrors of monsters come to life but humanity’s inhumanity (see the excellent, overlooked The Mist). Towns are now locked down, with one having a locomotive protecting the entrance. A violent religious cult has sprung up, together with rumours of cannibals. These threats add to the real unease; which is sometimes off-set by the music, which sounds like something out of The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Matin’s voice over, “Where did all that hate come from?”, adds to the Malickyness (not yet a word, I know). Ambitious then, and pared down, with only the climax feeling a bit over-egged letting the side down. Take note filmmakers, the end of days can be done on a shoe-string.
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