4th Scary Movies Series at the FilmLinc: Jim Mickle’s Stake Land

Last night Stake Land opened Film Society of Lincoln Center’s fourth annual “Scary Movies” festival. The festival is rather unique as it blends some of the familiar classics, such as Hellraiser, Carrie, Dead of Night, with some rarities like Jack Cardiff’s The Mutations and Legend of Hell House to new flavors such as Australia’s The Loved Ones, Triangle and last night’s opener, the TIFF Midnight Madness Audience Award winner, Stake Land.

The Walter Reade Theater was packed – due to the films’ pedigree coming from almost entirely New York city production companies. The face in the room who everyone knew was budding cult celebrity and horror film superstar Larry Fessenden. He and his partner Peter Phok produced the film for Glass Eye Pix, and obviously Fessenden had his signature cameo. Additionally, those guys who lay claim to four of the first five Red Cameras in existence, Offhollywood, also producers on the film, made their presence known during the credits. The screening was an appropriately raucous extravaganza worthy of the film that followed.

After debuting his calling card feature in 2006’s Mulberry Street, Jim Mickle’s sophomore outing becomes the latest entry into post-apocalyptic zombie, vampire, nuclear war, plague and wasteland genre. Yes, the genre is getting a bit crowded, but such as the writer and lead actor Nick Damici’s personality, the film is straight to the point, no nonsense void of any allegorical social commentary. Everytime such a film like this it bears the connotations of Romero’s and Matheson’s work, but apart from that, you’re meant to take this at face value. Damici was asked during the Q&A “What caused the vampire breakout?” Damici answered “George Bush.” Silence followed. “Wait, but I mean, like literally, what caused it?” “I’m the writer, I say it was George Bush, that’s it!” That was the actual exchange, everyone laughed, and then moved on. That’s the film. This is an ode to Matheson, Romero and their followers. It’s not a call to action, telling us to get our sh*t together before we cause an apocalypse, or anything like that. It’s just meant to be fun.

The movie starts, as you’d now expect, in a post-apocalyptic world overrun with a kind of feral vampire-zombie mashup, referred to as “vamps.” Mister (Nick Damici) comes across Martin (Connor Paolo), just as a vamp has murdered his family. Nick takes Martin under his wing and they go off in search of “New Eden,” which is later revealed to be Canada, pretty funny.

The only “message” of this film is about fanaticism. On the way, the obvious bad apples are the vamps, but in addition, a group of fundamentalist Christians end up causing just as much trouble for our heroes. “The Brotherhood,” as they’re called, rule a good chunk of the school, and threaten anyone who is not with them. Rape, cannibalism, and even (gasp!) plagiarism, are all dealt with in the narrative. As explained in the Q&A, The Brotherhood represents the filmmakers’ feelings that any kind of fanaticism is dangerous, especially when one attempts to put their personal beliefs upon another human being. Private practice is fine, but as soon as you actively seek to influence others, that’s when you get STAKED!

Check out the rest of the festival through Halloween at FilmLinc.com. I highly recommend seeing Hellraiser on the big screen, as well as the 2009 TIFF Audience Award winner The Loved Ones on closing night.