Day 21 - Stake Land (2010)

Stake Land marks the second directorial effort of Jim Mickle, whose first film, Mulberry Street was part of the 2007 8 Films to Die For series. I ignored Mulberry Street up until now because it was part of 8FtDF - which are all mostly crap - but having seen Stake Land I will definitely be giving MS a try, and keeping an eye out for further films from Mickle in the future.

In this post apocalyptic film, vampires have taken over. These aren't your sparkly, cuddly vampires either, these are ravenous, inhuman monstrosities; like runner zombies with fangs and an allergy to sunlight. After seeing his family killed, teenage Martin teams up with a vampire hunter named Mister who begins training Martin to fight the undead. Their goal is to reach Canada, now dubbed New Eden, where there are said to be no vampires, along the way picking up and losing various traveling partners. But vampires aren't their only problem as they fall into trouble with a group of religious zealots called the Brotherhood. Now they'll have to outsmart both the living and the undead if they're going to make it to New Eden alive

Stake Land comes off a little bit Zombieland, a little bit I Am Legend, but all awesome. This may be the best post apocalyptic/monster movie I've ever seen. Everything seems to balance here. There are big scares and gore of course - this is the first time, maybe since 30 Days of Night, that I've actually seen vampires I could be afraid of - but they come second to a more character driven and thoughtful story, two aspects that tend to be missing more often than not in most horror movies. Perhaps the most memorable aspect of this film however, is the few glimpses we're given of life after the apocalypse, when the main characters roll into various ramshackle towns and the audience gets to see how people are living and working together in a world overcome by monsters. Put simply, everything about this movie is outstanding. The cast is great, the story is great, the monsters are great. The only thing that bothered me at all was the music. While good in small doses, this nice, haunting soundtrack started to get on my nerves a little bit by the end of the movie. It just felt to me as though it were trying to work too hard to squeeze certain emotions out of its audience. But that's about the only problem I had with this movie.

So if you couldn't tell, I give Stake Land a big two thumbs up. This is a must see.

For Day 22 I will be viewing Primal (2010).