STAKE LAND On Demand → On Demand Weekly

STAKE LAND On DemandMay 04, 2011

IFC Films

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: STAKE LAND (IFC Films).

STAKE LAND On Demand

By Sky McCarthy

Those looking for a quant indie flick be warned – STAKE LAND is filled with as much gore as any high budget horror film. But, like many movies of a similar genre, consistently uses an onslaught of graphic blood-letting to distract from any real plotline. The post apocalyptic world created by director Jim Mickle is not realistic enough to inspire any real fear, nor does it reach that level of extreme absurdity to entertain for the entire hour and a half.

In a small American town where flesh eating zombie-vampires terrorize a shrinking human populace, a young boy named Martin (Connor Paolo, most recently of Gossip Girl fame) teams with a vampire hunting vigilante known only to the audience as “Mister.” The pairing and tone of the movie result in a feeling of THE ROAD meets ZOMBIELAND (without the laughs).

Indie horrors need not always suffer the same fate - read 28 DAYS LATER – but STAKE LAND has a difficult time deciding what it wants to be. For example, it is never made clear as to what caused this sudden break out of zombie hybrids and why they are so difficult to kill.

As the young boy and Mister continue to evade their other wordly, killers, a rag tag group of survivors bands together but no one is ever given a back story, which the director intentionally left out due to the “talent” of his actors. The result? Potential audience disengagement.

Aside from the unfortunately obvious religious symbolism that highlights the ultimate powerlessness of mankind in the face of End of Days, the movie has very little to tie each scene together. STAKE LAND may be an experimental foray into a new type of horror but very few may be willing test participants.

- Sky McCarthy

Sky McCarthy is a contributing writer to On Demand Weekly and a television enthusiast (ask me about anything!) currently working in entertainment in New York City.