I used to ride hard for Nick Damici and Jim Mickle’s films: Mulberrry Street, Stake Land, We Are What We Are. I thought they were the most underrated, innovative American filmmakers who only made great films. Although their films were considered horror movies, those films provided a more incisive commentary on American life during contemporary times than most dramas. Have they separated as a team? After they left American horror and started going into the more critically acceptable crime drama genre with Cold in July, which was fine, but did not pack as much of their signature textured socioeconomic deeper significant punch as their earlier work, they have not teamed up to make a film since. (They did make a series, Hap & Leonard, which I have not seen, but has a great cast, was cancelled. I have added it to my queue.) What happened my dudes? Please make up. Mickle is still directing, and Nick Damici was one of the screenplay writers for Bushwick, which I adored, but they are definitely stronger together, especially when they make horror films. Sequels are rarely good, but they should not be dreadful if the sequel manages to retain at least part of the creative team and the talent, but Stake Land II, also known as Stakelander, manages to disappoint.
If you did not see Stake Land, then don’t even consider watching Stake Land II. If you saw Stake Land, then try not to be me, a completist, and do not watch Stake Land II. Stake Land was memorable because while vampires are terrifying, they are nothing in comparison to hypocritical, cruel zealots. The vampires were like biological weapons to eliminate anyone who was the zealots’ enemies. The zealots were called the Brotherhood. The best horror movies are the ones that use a dystopian world to show us truths about our own. Instead of a political context, which would automatically raise viewers’ hackles, horror helps viewers figure out instinctually what actually scares us about our society without explicitly naming it. Stake Land was a prescient film that nailed the dystopian world that we would find ourselves in with the election of Presidon’t as Christianists spouted theology, but actually actively and relentlessly committed crimes against humanity. In contrast, their victims were the real Christians struggling to survive the inhumanity and madness of the Brotherhood.
In contrast, Stake Land II is an empty vessel completely robbed of any deeper significance, a superficial revisiting of a familiar world as if it was made by someone who watched the initial movie, but had zero understanding of anything other than spectacle. It is a standard vampire versus human movie except instead of fully exploring the full moral ramifications of how the vampires would feel if the ones that we saw as heroes could possibly be characterized as perpetrators, also inhumane, incapable of respecting the complexity of life and empathizing with someone for being different and only seeing them as a threat, it just sticks to convention. Vampires, even intelligent ones understandably looking for revenge, are evil and must be stopped. Even as a standard vampire film, there is nothing for you here. It was so predictable and lacking in any sense of freshness that I feel as if Rotten Tomatoes was solely invented for this movie. I kept hoping that at some point, the movie would find its rhythm and at least deliver standard thrills for a vampire movie, but it consistently fails to do so.
Stake Land II is supposed to be set in a dystopian world filled with The Brotherhood and vampires, but these characters act as foolishly as if it was the first day of the apocalypse. It feels as if these characters were literally born yesterday and get snookered quite easily. How did they survive long enough to make it to a sequel? Cannibals. Check. Fighting pits. Check. Trusting the wrong person. Check. Instead of Stake Land II, it should have been called no country for women for reasons that will become apparent if you do not follow my advice and watch the film. In the first film, it felt less cheap. The sequel felt like discount Mad Max: Fury Road. Even the vampires should be ashamed because they play with their food instead of eating it. There are starving vampires in America, young man.
If I had to find some reason to praise Stake Land II, there is an interracial, gay couple, and The X-Files’ Steven Williams plays one of the two. Unfortunately they don’t get a lot of screen time, and instead we are stuck revisiting the father son dynamic, which worked in the first film, but does not carryover effectively to this one. It really almost feels as if Mister was a completely different character in this sequel. I understand that people change over time, and it has been under six years, but really? Also the protagonist may have always been this way, and I didn’t notice because the overall movie was dynamic and nuanced, but he is boring and standard. Even his surrogate father almost did not recognize him. He is that unmemorable.
Stake Land II was such a disappointment. While it isn’t the worst vampire movie (Uwe Boll probably made that movie), it is so lackluster and uninteresting that it would have been better if it was never made at all. I am sure that if I really considered it, I have seen a movie with the exact same plot, complete with the same twists, that was far better than this one. Come on guys, stronger together!