Tuesday, October 23, 2012

Halloween Horror Movie Marathon: Film 12

Here's a little film that I don't think has gotten it's fair share of love.


I'm probably the gazillionth person to say this about "Stake Land," but that's because it's pretty accurate; think "The Road" (based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy) but with vampires. I'm going to go out on my own limb, however, and say, of the two films, I think "Stake Land" is the more interesting. Plus it's got vampires.

I've been thinking about "Stake Land" for a bit, and I'm finding it a difficult film to write about, other than just saying it's really good, go rent it. But that doesn't tell you much now does it.

I guess the problem I'm having is that this isn't a plot driven movie. It's more akin to a road movie, but it's also a very observational film. That is to say, here is a situation and here is how these different characters react to and deal with it.

Here's the set up; society as we know it has fallen apart as vampires have overrun the world. Not the mopey, metrosexual vampires of "Twilight" or some super, elite vamps attempting to rebuild the world in their own image. These are pure, animal-like monsters; unemotional, unthinking, unorganized, living only for the hunt. Through this world we follow a pair of human survivors; a young boy named Martin (Connor Paolo) and the man known only as Mister (Nick Damici), who rescued Martin when his parents were killed. The two travel across the country looking for nothing more than to survive. But even that simple notion has different meanings to both. Martin seems to want to find a place to settle, where as Mister is content to survive on the road, killing as many vamps along the way as he can.

We meet a number of other characters as we travel with the pair, but we never really get to know anyone. They don't speak to each other too often about anything overly serious or emotional. They are all very guarded, and for good reason. Any one of their company or all of them could be gone in an instant, so no one, especially Mister, wants to get too close. The most insight we get comes from Marvin's voice over narration. This all lends to that feeling I mentioned of this being a very observational film. And that's a good thing. It's a bit different way of telling a story and it works well here.

This one's definitely a little heavier than some of my other recommendations, but it's a good, creepy, unsettling film, and well worth finding it's way into your Halloween schedule.

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