Bored with the Oscars, I watched a critique of capitalism and xian fundies in the form of a horror
flick called Stake land.
This review sums it up well.
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Stake Land, on the other hand, which I saw last night, did not have the shackles of mainstream studio production (which probably accounts for its patchy distribution) but succeeds through its mix of cultural references to be very insightful indeed. I can’t recall another horror film which makes such strong connections to the Great Depression through cultural references to that period of American history as represented in film, photography and literature. No surprise that one of the creative forces behind the film was Larry Fessenden, who has probably done more than anyone to promote independent horror production in the last ten years, and has a genuine sense of the subversive potential of the genre.
The story is very similar to that of Zombie-Land (2009). Martin, a teenage boy who has lost his family, teams up with a grizzled vampire-hunter known only as ‘Mister’, and together they embark on a road trip through an apocalyptic landscape, heading towards what they hope will be a better place in Canada. Along the way they experience hardship, loss, human kindness (in some of the encampments they stop at) and its opposite (in their encounters with The Brotherhood, a right-wing fundamentalist group who rule the South). The vampire threat (like the zombie threat in Romero’s films) is largely secondary. The main concern of the film is surviving in a bleak landscape following social collapse, where humanity is at a premium.
Co-writer/director Jim Mickle consciously referenced the Great Depression in choosing to set much of the film in rural Pennsylvania, giving the film “a dustbowl depression look, not some futuristic, apocalyptic look, but more little kids running around in potato sacks”. As the film unfolds, one becomes aware of images that strongly invoke the famous Depression-era photography of Dorothea Lange. We see families stranded at the side of the road in broken down cars; people living in shanty towns; possessions and clothes being bartered in street markets. This, of course invites an allegorical reading of the film, which Mickle has, himself, welcomed. “People have seen the film as a critique of capitalism, greed or extremism, and I’d agree that it’s meant to be a cautionary tale.”
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http://www.subversive-horror-films.com/2012_04_01_archive.html?zx=16cec6922d4b3861
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