The Stakelander

Traveling away from the fortified city, a man wanders into the previous saviour of their society who's now living in a vast, vampire-filled wilderness and tries to help him sort through his troubled past to help restore the peaceful society they remembered.

This here was quite the disappointing and really underwhelming effort. Most of the film's problems are due to the fact that this one just doesn't have much of anything happening here, unlike the original which had a lot of enjoyable action scenes throughout. Instead, here the film is far more pressed for lame melodrama about the fight for survival in the wilderness and his search for his mentor that it takes plenty of time to actually get any kind of action featured within this one as we get scenes of him wandering around the wilderness meeting the loner family, finding him in the underground fighting club and the really endless scenes of the two of them hiking around with the captive woman that it really does feel like seemingly endless scenes that aren't in the slightest bit interesting and just really drag this one out. Likewise, once they get into the new compound the scenes of them meeting up with the locals living there and interacting with them as they get integrated into their lifestyle also makes this one quite overly bland and rather dull during here. That also produces the unwanted effect of keeping the vampires off-screen except for a few brief encounters throughout here which is the film's only good scenes but it really draws out how few scenes they're involved in when it's entirely possible to see how little scenes they're shown and comes off as furthering how flawed this is. It does come close to featuring some rather enjoyable moments here which is mostly centered on the vampires attacking as there's some rather fun, bloody sequences here that are part of the big encounters on display which includes the first encounter at the farmhouse which is really thrilling and gets in some decent brawling while the other encounters out in the wilderness comes across as rather bloody and exciting. There's still the finale of this one which is where there's plenty of rather fun and enjoyable action here which really works so well in generating the required action that carries this one off quite nicely with plenty of gunfire, explosions and brawling that takes place throughout the compound it really makes for quite the effective and rousing series of scenes that really manages to get the proper excitement and bloodshed required to end on a high-note. Still, it's flaws here really hold this one back.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

This sequel picks of the story of Martin, at least a few years after the first film, where 'following yet another great tragedy in his short life, he seeks to find "Mister" again, the man who had taken him in as a teenager and taught him how to fight vampires and take care of himself. Martin begins this new journey through mostly desolate regions where it's as dangerous to trust an "unturned" human, as it is to fight the ravenous undead.

This time around, the character Martin had a little more grit, depth and emotion, but I was still rather underwhelmed. Not terribly so, in that you can understand the "shellshock" due to his great personal losses, and hence a kind of detachment regarding anything except fighting and killing. "Mister", the unnamed aging vampire fighter played by Nick Damici, the writer of the story, is as intense and believable as ever, and the best part about the film in my opinion. Some old friends of "Mister" provide more backstory of his history, which content is not unexpected but welcome, and eventually influences the ending of the tale at this time.

There's a fair amount of blood and gore, a couple of surprises, and a revenge element that connects both of the main characters, as the necessity and burden of fighting for survival nearly becomes too much for each. I rated it a 7 mostly on Damici's performance, as the storyline is typical for post-apocalyptic vampire/undead movies, and the cinematography was pretty good. It's definitely worth a watch if you liked the first film, and you wanted to see what happened to Martin and "Mister".

The Stakelander or simply Stake Land 2 is a follow up to the 2010 feature which had a fair bit going for it.

Set in a post apocalyptic world that's been ravaged by vampires and small pockets of humanity are doing their best to survive. All grown up we see Martin (Connor Paolo) return and on a quest to find his mentor known only as Mister (Nick Damici) to assist him in getting avenging his families murder by the new big bad vampire queen. To make matters worse Christian fanatics have teamed with the vampires, deeming their leader a "Holy mother".

Now though the first Stake Land was hardly groundbreaking it was an enjoyable enough fluff piece that kept my attention throughout. After six years I certainly didn't expect a sequel and honestly don't think we needed one, the movie itself just confirms my belief.

Don't get me wrong this sequel isn't bad, it just accomplishes nothing and just plods along with mediocrity. Sure it's nice to see the two leads of the previous movie return, but they don't bring anything to the table worth paying attention to.

The side cast are great including veteran Steven Williams, but the writing is all over the place and left an already unnecessary movie even flatter than it should have been.

If you really liked the first then this might be worth a watch, for anyone else not so much.

*Insert pun here about this vampire movie sucking here*

The Good:

Same cast

Steven Williams

The Bad:

Shoddy writing

The whole thing is just so "Meh"

I had fun with this one, mostly of course because it reminded me of the first, a vampire movie with a slightly different approach. It is quite obvious that the horror viewers are begging for anything unusual.

As vamp movies go, there are a few with "cojones", like Daybreakers, presenting a complete society or Priest, with a new monster look, a better dystopian background.

Now for Stake Land: a nice add-on to the genre, a small movie that was nicely welcomed by anyone. The second part succeeded throughout the movie but failed with the opposite side, where they should have worked just a little more. If that part would have been explored properly, I do believe Stakelander could have been easily just as enjoyable as the first. Nevertheless it is a good movie on its own and I do recommend it.

All in all, I do hope for a third part, and with a little more effort, maybe we can have a nicely almost indie trilogy. One to remember!

Cheers!

I hope my review will help you guys, if you are the fan of the prequel Stake Land and then think twice before watching this! It was the couple of days before "Tet"- a traditional holiday in my country, i came to the DVD store looking for some good stuffs and then i found it. Wow they made the sequel! Amazing, i was really excited cause Stake Land was one of my favorites vampire movies (along with the Blade series and Daybreakers) I watched it on the morning of "Mung 5", the fifth day of Tet.First of all, the beginning was acceptable and then after 20 minutes everything gone wrong. The slots broke down, the conversation between the characters is boring and unnecessary. The runaway from the Brotherhood take too much time, the film turn into slow process with the flashback from our 2 main characters. The ending is the most disappointed in 80 minutes of this film, Martin seeking for revenge but when The Mother and vampire attack he has to wait for Mister to lure The Mother in to fight. The fight end-up quickly but seriously the fighting scene look so fake and the equipment, the backstage, also the CGI graphic throughout the film keep me questioning about the budget of this film. I actually has a very good impression and enjoyable time watching the first film by Nick Damici but this one is not. Last but not least, the Stakelander ruined my feeling about one of the best vampire horror in the recent years, i hope they could make a stop after this or else they could make the next mistake just like 20th Century Fox with Wrong Turn sequel.