...is what I wanted to know after enjoying this sleeper indie, and the duo's prior effort, "Mulberry Street." Jim Mickle writes and directs, Nick Damici writes and acts, and it's a pretty good combo on both outings; I have little doubt that the hat trick will be impressive.
"Stake Land" is essentially a road movie, much like "Zombieland," but without the tongue-in-cheek humor, rather more along the grim avenues of "The Road." It's a vampire-strewn apocalypse set in New York (but ravaging the entire country and likely the entire world) that our two heroes, Damici and Connor "Revenge" Paolo, must navigate in search of sanctuary in a rumored "New Eden" up in Canada. Along the way, they deal with various hostiles, human and vampire, and take on fellow travelers. Damici plays another tough, laconic man of action, as he did in "Mulberry Street," mentoring Paolo's young survivor in the ways of a desolate world in which the remaining humans can be as much of an obstacle as the implacable vampires. There's plenty of fine support from the likes of Danielle "I'm a Scream Queen" Harris in a refreshingly atypical turn, Michael "Fringe" Cerveris as the primary antagonist, Sean "Fresh" Nelson as temporary reinforcement, and Kelly "Top Gun" McGillis as the overt spiritual representative. Superbly lensed by DP Ryan "Steel City" Samul (who also did "Mulberry Street"), and with great production/art design, "Stake Land" puts us in the middle of a devastated civilization as effectively as similar films with much higher budgets. Jeff "The House of the Devil" Grace's music sets the various emotional tones well without being cloying or overly frenetic. "Stake Land" looks, feels, and sounds far better than its budget.
That said, I'm not going to belabor the somewhat derivative plot; it's far from fresh, but still well-constructed, and the dialogue mostly avoids the irritating clichés of the genre. The acting is good, the characters are mostly well drawn, and the lack of egregious "Oh, c'mons!" goes a long way toward holding audience attention. Some may find fault with the mainstream Hollywood climax, but I had no real problem with it, and the ending, to be honest, struck me as very natural. Mister's job was done.
Certainly recommended to genre fans as a decent watch, and far better than so much of the uninspired garbage that's out there these days.
"Stake Land" is essentially a road movie, much like "Zombieland," but without the tongue-in-cheek humor, rather more along the grim avenues of "The Road." It's a vampire-strewn apocalypse set in New York (but ravaging the entire country and likely the entire world) that our two heroes, Damici and Connor "Revenge" Paolo, must navigate in search of sanctuary in a rumored "New Eden" up in Canada. Along the way, they deal with various hostiles, human and vampire, and take on fellow travelers. Damici plays another tough, laconic man of action, as he did in "Mulberry Street," mentoring Paolo's young survivor in the ways of a desolate world in which the remaining humans can be as much of an obstacle as the implacable vampires. There's plenty of fine support from the likes of Danielle "I'm a Scream Queen" Harris in a refreshingly atypical turn, Michael "Fringe" Cerveris as the primary antagonist, Sean "Fresh" Nelson as temporary reinforcement, and Kelly "Top Gun" McGillis as the overt spiritual representative. Superbly lensed by DP Ryan "Steel City" Samul (who also did "Mulberry Street"), and with great production/art design, "Stake Land" puts us in the middle of a devastated civilization as effectively as similar films with much higher budgets. Jeff "The House of the Devil" Grace's music sets the various emotional tones well without being cloying or overly frenetic. "Stake Land" looks, feels, and sounds far better than its budget.
That said, I'm not going to belabor the somewhat derivative plot; it's far from fresh, but still well-constructed, and the dialogue mostly avoids the irritating clichés of the genre. The acting is good, the characters are mostly well drawn, and the lack of egregious "Oh, c'mons!" goes a long way toward holding audience attention. Some may find fault with the mainstream Hollywood climax, but I had no real problem with it, and the ending, to be honest, struck me as very natural. Mister's job was done.
Certainly recommended to genre fans as a decent watch, and far better than so much of the uninspired garbage that's out there these days.