Mister Sparta’s Creature Feature: Review of “Stake Land”

by Mister Sparta, guest reviewer

Hello, folks, and welcome to the first (and hopefully not the last) edition of Mister Sparta’s Creature Feature.  Tonight’s selection: Stake Land.

I watched this movie with the lowest of expectations.  Why?  Because lately, my faith in vampire movies has gone down the shitter.  In my lifetime, only three, count em, THREE vampires movies have entertained me: Bram Stoker’s Dracula with Gary Oldman, The Lost Boys with Kiefer Sutherland, and Daybreakers with Willem Dafoe.   Everything else vampire related has been too cliché to hold my interest or has just plain pissed me off to the point where I want to burn all copies of it and piss on the ashes.

That said, I stuck around and watched “Stake Land” to the ending and I must say….this was not what I expected.  The movie started out with too much of a “Zombieland” vibe. Connor Paolo plays the main character, Martin, who is a nerdy wuss that starts the movie with narration.

Not to mention, this movie shamelessly tried to display itself as hardcore by having a vampire feast on a baby.  It was as if the movie was shouting “Look me. I’m hardcore.  I had a vampire eat a baby. Please pay attention to me and take me seriously.” Frankly, this shameless act of attention whoring tempted me to turn off the movie, not because I find baby eating to be gross, but because it played no other purpose than to try and add shock value to itself. Of course, I kept going, hoping this movie would get better.

Nick Damici plays Mister, the rootin-tootin vampire slayer that acts like Whistler from Blade.  Together, these two polar opposites travel the land in search of a zombie….oh, I mean Vampire-free area called Pacific Playland….wait, no, I meant New Eden.  Sorry, it’s just these two movies seem to have the same starting formula. That said, thatwas the only similarity these two movies shared. After the first 20 minutes or so, the movie took a right turn into Holy Fuckville.  It displayed a gritty, post-apocalyptic view of a vampire movie. It showed the darker side of humanity, how religious zealotry can spread like wildfire in situations like this, and how humanity can also possess the means to redeem and rebuild itself as a society.

The sub-antagonist, portrayed as a group of neo-Nazi religious zealots called The Brotherhood, foiled well to the backdrop of the vampires.  The vampires, by the way, impressed the fuck out of me.  They did not sparkle, they did not brood, they did not engage in Anne Rice-esque erotica.  They were beasts.  Plain, simple, fucked up, wild beasts and I loved them.  But, what they did not need were classifications.  If you’ve watched the movie, you’ll know what I’m talking about.

And below all the vampire slaying and the All-Hope-Is-Lost-But-Can-Be-Found journey is a coming of age story.  Martin starts the movie as a timid pussy that you just cannot like. By the end of the movie, Martin is a badass vampire slayer, matured and ready to face the world.  The progression from point A to point B is often times subtle in the movie, but when you look back, you go “oh, I get it now.”

One thing I dug about this movie was once I had it pegged and predicted, it swerved to the left and made me go  “What the fuck?!”   The movie on the whole felt too long until the last 20 minutes when it felt too rushed.

The final fight was done in less than a few minutes, and the ending is really ambiguous.

In summation, I now have FOUR vampire movies on my list of movies I’ll always enjoy watching.  Stake Land pleasantly surprised me with its out-of-left field direction. Acting-wise, it could’ve been better, but by no means was it terrible.

So, my final judgment?   Buy it, rent it, get it on Netflix, download if you have to, but watch this movie.  It may not renew your faith in vampire movies, but it’ll give you a bit of hope for the future.

That’s all for now. Until next time, I’m Mister Sparta and if life has taught me anything, it’s Stake First, ask questions later, and love the taste of garlic.

Keep those stakes sharped and your squirt guns full of holy water and head back on over to ComicsOnline for all your Creature Feature needs.