{"id":6823,"date":"2017-05-21T05:07:33","date_gmt":"2017-05-21T04:07:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/?p=6823"},"modified":"2019-03-05T17:30:22","modified_gmt":"2019-03-05T16:30:22","slug":"the-stakelander-stake-land-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2017\/05\/21\/the-stakelander-stake-land-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"The Stakelander (Stake Land II)"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stakelander\"<\/a>
The Stakelander (Stake Land II)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\n

Format:<\/b> DVD
\nRelease date:<\/b> 3 April 2017
\nDistributor:<\/b> Kaleidoscope Entertainment
\nDirectors:<\/b> Dan Berk, Robert Olsen
\nWriter:<\/b> Nick Damici
\nCast:<\/b> Connor Paolo, Nick Damici, Laura Abramsen
\nUSA 2016
\n81 mins<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The follow-up to Jim Mickle\u2019s apocalyptic vampire tale Stake Land<\/i> is disappointing but there is life still in this undead saga.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n

It\u2019s nice to see Glass Eye Pix building up something like a franchise, with star-writer Nick Damici staying on from Jim Mickle\u2019s Stake Land<\/i><\/a> and the Body team<\/i> of Dan Berk and Robert Olsen stepping in as directors. The first film offered an alternative to the many, many zombie apocalypses by presenting a vampire apocalypse. It also added the I Am Legend<\/i> fillip of showing the last remnants of North American humanity besieged by zombie-like nocturnal monsters and equally dangerous lunatic religious factions (\u2018the Brotherhood\u2019), as hints of malign intelligence suggest that there might be more traditional, calculating vampires out there. In this follow-up, the theme is only slightly developed with the addition of a vampire villainess, the Mother (Kristina Hughes) \u2013 should she get together with the Father, from Octane<\/i>? \u2013 who has a grudge against Mad Maxy veteran vamp-hunter Mister (Damici) for killing her child (she\u2019s a rare vampire who can give birth) and putting out her eye with an arrow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Though it takes a while for the plot to cohere, the storyline offers plenty of action. It begins with Martin (Connor Paolo), who headed for relative safety in Canada at the end of the first film, suffering as his family is slaughtered by the Mother and her \u2018berserker\u2019 troops as part of a scheme to get him to find the missing-in-action Mister so she can get revenge. Peggy (Bonnie Dennison), who figured in the hopeful ending last time round, reappears briefly, and there\u2019s the fulfilment of a bit of throwaway dialogue from Stake Land<\/i> whereby Canada is seen to be relatively vampire-free but troubled by cannibals, in an encounter with a folksy old couple who (as in a bit of The Road<\/i><\/a>) turn out to have an unhospitable streak. Thereafter Martin comes across Walking Dead<\/i>-like enclaves of bad survivors who enjoy throwing people into gladiatorial arenas, a feral mute called Lady (names are out of fashion in the stakelands, obviously), Klan-robed vampire-worshippers, good survivors bossed by grizzled character actors (A.C. Peterson, Steven Williams), ending in an inevitable last stand as subplots are trimmed and the monsters attack en masse. As the original suggests, this goes for a post-apocalyptic mythmaking feel \u2013 drawing on the Mad Max<\/i> series but also any number of Westerns \u2013 as characters who are slowly turning into legends clash painfully.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s disappointing that this treads water insofar as the apocalypse goes \u2013 the Mother has some impressive nastinesses, including dragging a minion into her daytime palanquin to be ripped apart \u2013 but doesn\u2019t speak or seem that much more fearsome than the average vamp. It\u2019s also extremely murky \u2013 a key moment in the final attack comes when a human suicide bomber takes out the generators so the UV lights the survivors use to fend off vampires are shut off, but this means the whole climax (like much of the film) takes place in such darkness that it\u2019s hard to tell what exactly is going on. GEP supremo Larry Fessenden has his inevitable cameo, presumably as a new character. I hope there are more Stakeland<\/i> (or Stake Land<\/i>) films since the world is interesting enough \u2013 and Damici and Paolo still have some mileage in their much-abused characters \u2013 to offer developments that this running-on-the-spot effort doesn\u2019t quite deliver. Surely, one of the heroes should become a vampire and \u2013 as in I Am Legend<\/i> \u2013 vampires should become more organised, articulate and ruthless\u2026 and there should be a Romeo and Juliet human-vampire relationship if growing vampire intelligence also means a growing vampire emotional range. To my mind, this premise, which has roots in Matheson but also informs Justin Cronin\u2019s Passage<\/i> novels, offers more potential than the increasingly soapy, gimmicky and self-cannibalising Walking Dead<\/i> saga, so I\u2019d hate to think it was all over here.<\/p>\n

Kim Newman<\/b><\/i><\/p>\n

<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The follow-up to Jim Mickle\u2019s apocalyptic vampire tale Stake Land<\/i> is disappointing but there is life still in this undead saga.
\nReview by Kim Newman<\/B><\/I><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1374],"tags":[1404,970,111,776,1405,1406,177],"class_list":["post-6823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-kim-newmans-nightmare-movies","tag-american-horror-film","tag-apocalypse","tag-horror-film","tag-jim-mickle","tag-larry-fessenden","tag-nick-damici","tag-vampires"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","wps_subtitle":"Kim Newman\u2019s Nightmare Movies","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/purUP-1M3","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1739,"url":"http:\/\/www.electricsheepmagazine.co.uk\/reviews\/2011\/06\/15\/stake-land\/","url_meta":{"origin":6823,"position":0},"title":"Stake Land","author":"VirginieSelavy","date":"June 15, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"Set in apocalyptic America, the story follows the travels of vampire stalker Mister and orphaned Martin, picked up by Mister as an apprentice\/vampire killer pal. 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