Review of Stake Land

Straight off the bat – STAKE LAND is not a Vampire movie! It is a fairly typical Zombie movie that uses semblances of the Vampire genre to throw a few curve balls into the narrative mix. It’s almost as though the Vampire element were an after thought added to try and differentiate the film from other post-apocalypse monster movies and this sets the standard of the film as a whole; difference for the stake of difference. Like a Zombie movie the cause for global Vampire infestation is explained simply as an outbreak or a plague, and this works fine with the undead – however STAKE LAND tries to have it both ways, it hints at a far larger mythology of Vampires and Slayers, but shies away from creating a concrete universe and explaining the whys and wherefores. Yes the Vamps have fangs and if they bite you – you’ll turn into one, but they are animalistic and mindless. Yes they burn up in the sun – but you never see this happen. To kill them you have to stake them in the heart or chop off their head – but if you maim them they’ll hobble around for the rest of their days as opposed to regenerating.
Vampire movies by their nature are fantasy and mythical – whereas Zombie films traditionally pose a question of survival in a mostly real world setting. STAKE LAND flips between the two at it’s convenience making the whole affair less convincing than it could’ve been. Other than stumbling over what it’s trying to be, STAKE LAND does a few things right: It’s scripting is sharp and never strays into exposition, the language used also has a casual argot that furthers the believability of the world presented on screen, and the relatively unknown cast hold their own well.