Back in March of this year I reviewed a little film called Mulberry Street, by the team of Jim Mickle and Nick Damici. It was about New York being overrun by an infestation of mutant rat-people (or by Clan Moulder deciding to take in the sights of New York; pick your preferred backstory). It was a very good film and really set the bar high for what indie filmmakers can do with a low budget and a lot of determination. Well, Mickle and Damici's next film after Mulberry Street was Stake Land, wherein they showed us all what they could do with an actual budget.
A vampiric plague is sweeping America (and by extension, the rest of the world) and humanity is seemingly fighting a losing battle against the feral vampires that prey on them at night. One average family are trying to escape before the vampires overrun their home but they decided to get moving too late and only their teenage son, Martin, escapes with the timely intervention of a mysterious stranger known only as "Mister". Mister is a vampire hunter, and he decides to take Martin under his wing; protecting him from the vampires while at the same time teaching him to take care of himself, using handmade stakes, arrows and machetes to dispatch the vampires they come across. The vampires aren't the only threats out there, however; the developing apocalypse has of course caused all manner of cults to pop up - some of them are cannibals while others believe that the vampires are agents of God, culling the unworthy so that the righteous will be rewarded all the quicker, and they do their bit to speed this process up whenever they can, usually by dropping vampires onto survivor communities. Mister and Martin cross paths with one such cult and soon they've not just got the vampires to worry about...
A post-apocalyptic horror film where the apocalypse hasn't been caused by zombies? Certainly this is a film that's already going against trends, even if the vampires' feral behaviour might put people more in mind of zombies than of vampires - as they can still be killed with a stake through the heart (most of the time) or by sunlight, they're still more vampire than zombie. But really, the cause of the end of civilization isn't important - it could have been caused by giant marauding kittens and the basic premise of the film would remain the same, albeit with less stakes and more spray bottles and crinkly toys. Stake Land is about surviving in the breakdown of civilization and everything you know, and how our characters survive, adapt and maybe even learn to thrive in such a situation.
To this end, it makes perfect sense that the film is narrated by Martin, as he goes from being a regular teenage boy to losing everything and everyone he knew in one night, to becoming Mister's apprentice and learning to live in this new world. The journey Martin and Mister are taking, to the almost fabled "New Eden" where everything will be safe, might be literally, but it's also paralleled in the metaphorical journey Martin embarks on as he learns how to be a Hunter from Mister - by the time their journey ends, Martin will be safe as he will be able to take care of himself.
Much like Mulberry Street, there are only a handful of characters in Stake Land, and every one of them is important in some way. For most of them we learn very little about through the course of the film, which makes sense - just as we are never told what has caused this worldwide outbreak of vampires, for the most part the characters' pasts are unimportant to the plot. Dwelling on the past will only get you killed. Still, you can't help but wonder sometimes, especially about Mister, who has obviously had quite the past before we and Martin meet him - he's a Hunter, who are recognised by people as having put up some resistance against the vampires at some point, but apparently most are now dead. If there was ever the possibility for a prequel, then following Mister during an earlier part of the vampire plague would have to be a strong contender for the story.
The movie probably does bear some resemblance to The Road, both in its basic plot and in the naming conventions of our protagonists at least. That doesn't make it a copy or retread, however; Stake Land is still very much its own film, and quite the enthralling one at that. It's definitely worth checking out, especially if you're looking for something different from the dozens of zombie apocalypse survival films (and I say that as a zombie affectionado)...
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