TIFF REVIEW: FILM #38 "Stake Land"

DIRECTED BY -  Jim Mickle

IN MY OPINION - 6/10

I'm sorry, but did anyone ask for zombieland with vampires? Cause that's what I just watched-right down to a constant voice over by the loser we root for as he follows the brazen "mr" on his killing sprees across the country as he heads to "new Eden"
First kill sequence, I had high hopes as a vampire that looks like a face painted rabid racoon feeds on a baby from the rafters, dropping it's tiny corpse when switching to being on the attack. Not bad. Then It all goes to shit.
A BORING voice over follows the two leads across the country as they constantly head north, killing vampires along the way. Stopping off to visit camps of survivors- trade goods- visit nameless whores and then ride on. LAME! There was NOTHING new in here at all.
It upsets me when a movie has potential, and then relies on cliche instead. The Herod pick up a girl along the way- obvious, oh and she's pregnant. Then they pick up a whitty black guy fighting for hi life against Arian religits, oh and he used to be in te military and has all the tid-bits of inormation the writers think we want to know. I was hoping they would avoid this moment, but it's cliche so why not use it.
I honestly just wanted te characters to die.
All that said, there are a few fun vampire kills, but at times the vampires seemed almost like zombies which kept making me think yet again of zombieland. There is a hilariously bad karate kid training esq montage as the lead learns how to jab a stake! Ugh!
I must say though, dropping vampires from a helicopter as an attack method is pretty damn cool, but reminded me further of how this movie is not as strong as the sum of it's parts.
The best moment is at the end- which I shall diculdge here. The plac they are all running too- new Eden- Yeah, it's Canada! Hilarious. Luckily this high moment was quickly followed up the end credits.

FOLLOW UP COMMENT  -  
Stake Land won the peoples choice midnight Madness award art TIFF 2010, which makes me wonder what it was that I was missing, and what movie everyone else was watching.  The constant review I hear is that the post-apocolyptic depiction is great, the brotherhood element is so well done, the vampire moments are great...   And still I feel like my initial opinion holds true.  The state of the world is brushed over, and just as anything shows a glimpse of being interesting we're on the move again.  I just don't get it - but the film I'm sure shall get distribution so at some point I shall check it out again.