Monday, August 15, 2011

3 Short Paragraphs: Stake Land


2010, Jim Mickle (some other small budget horror movies) -- download

I am still thinking about this movie after having watched it last night. It came to my attention via the usual specFic movie blogs over the past year, with good reviews and predictions on how it will do. But I always take those blogs with a pig of salt as most exist to be recognized by the film maker to get validation & free schtuff. Nothing wrong with free schtuff but it makes you no different than those standard reviewer names you see on the hollywood schlock posters. But this one was really an honest opinioned piece.

It's The Road meets a zombie movie meets I Am Legend -- story, not movie. Its a road movie, it's a post recent apocalypse movie, it's a monster movie, it's a plague movie. It explores the popular trope of vampirism as a virus but doesn't dwell on the virus and how its spread but more on the impact that rabid, bestial vampires have on society -- yeah, not a good impact.

I keep on floating back to the melancholy of the movie, the slow and tainted sadness it carries with it. We have heroes, true gritty fuck the bad guys up kind of heroes but not wooden and stoic -- their pain bleeds through the movie like the so much spilled blood in every scene. We see backward, nasty men do not just evil things but acts plain wrong. And yet we also see people just living on, dancing & singing and helping their neighbor. Even with all that is happening, with bad becoming worse, they push one more step forward to a possible relief.

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