Stake Land (2010)

this film is defo a 7.5 however i gave it an 8 for effort after watching the making of, what they did on a very low budget was indeed impressive, lots of action, character development, and good practical effects,best bit was defo when the ending

Released in early 2010 and directed by Jim Mickle from Nick Damici's script (co-written by Mickle), "Stake Land" is an adventure/horror movie about an orphaned boy, Martin (Connor Paolo), and a laconic, grizzled stranger called Mister (Damici) who teaches the kid how to be a vampire-killer as they team-up and journey through the post-apocalyptic landscape of Pennsylvania and New York on their way to a supposed haven in what used to be Canada. Kelly McGillis, Danielle Harris, Sean Nelson and Bonnie Dennison play people they run across in their travels while Michael Cerveris plays the leader of a whack job group of religious fundamentalists. I like the melancholic and realistic tone with the corresponding forlorn score, which is superb slit-your-wrist type music. This is basically an adventure movie in a post-apocalyptic landscape (think "The Postman"), but with extreme horror/gore elements. The zombies are undead and therefore vampiric in nature –coming out at night to suck the blood of the living. The "vamps" sorta take away from the gritty tone of the film because they're a little cartoony, but "The Brotherhood" are even more cartoony, particularly at the end when a former member turns vamp, but somehow retains his mental faculties. Why sure! However, I love the Northeast locations, shot in Pottstown, PA, and Middletown, NY. The film runs 98 minutes.GRADE: B

I didn't hate the fact that they were making vampires 'cool' again. Films Like From dusk TIll Dawn, and John Carpenters Vampires, are both classics, In my humble opinion. I also didn't mind the copious amount of gore throughout the film. The shaky camera, in scenes where people are sitting still is unforgivable. The Gummo-like voice overs were too quite to hear. The Acting was all passable. But Danielle Harris' wonky eyebrow still amazes/amuses me, beyond any of the performances in this. Also, thanks for killing her character off. I know the baby probably shows up somewhere in the sequel(which I refuse to watch). But knowing Ms. Harris isn't getting paid for said sequel. THAT is glorious. One last sentence.

Yeah this movie isn't all that great, but some are calling it the worst horror film of the decade, but I wouldn't call it that, not by a long shot, that honor goes to Zombie Nation (no I don't mean the TV series) that movie is a steaming pile of crap and more then deserves its rating of 2.1/10. Anyways the thing I didn't like the most about Stake Land is that it has a lot of plot holes, like Mister who is supposed to be some expert hunter, yet he goes and leaves a sleeping, pregnant girl alone, I mean come on! And the sister wasn't having any trouble keeping up, but she just suddenly decides to commit suicide?!? She was with Mister and Martin, so wasn't able to see that the girl had fallen behind, so she wasn't doing it to help her get away. Also Mister had been obsessed with getting both himself and Martin to New Eden, but when they are finally within reach of it, he just goes off and leaves him? Would of made way more sense for Mister to make sure he at least got there, even if Mister no longer wanted to stay. Plus the dialogue just didn't feel natural a lot of the time, seemed like people said things that one wouldn't actually say. Also the tone of the film was very serious, it wasn't trying to be one of those "so stupid it's funny" movies, it was trying to be serious, yet it was very cheesy at times, like that cop saluting Mister as he rode off into the distance, I actually laughed out loud at that. I realize this movie was done on a small budget, but still the really cheap sound affects detracted from the film as well, as did the many different firearms mistakes. However considering the small budget I was impressed with the quality of the special affects. I think this movie's strongest point is the character development, that was pretty well written. I was genuinely sad when Martin had to kill the girl.