You may groan when you hear that Stake Land is another postapocalyptic zombie-plague picture, although the zombies here are called vamps and drink blood and occasionally speak. But Jim Mickle's odyssey is terrific and far more unpretentiously evocative than AMC's The Walking Dead, the campy Zombieland, or even the last two Romero pictures. When his family is devoured, young Martin (Connor Paolo) is adopted by a gruff hunter (co-writer Nick Damici) in an attempt to reach something called the New Eden, while they themselves are hunted by a raping-and-pillaging religious cult (led by Broadway's Michael Cerveris). The kills are grisly and sad rather than whoop-de-dos, and the supporting cast—including Kelly McGillis as a nun and Danielle Harris as a pregnant girl—is very fine.
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