Vampire Flicks: Stake Land II (The Stakelander) (2016)

By the time I got around to watching that Blu-Ray of Stake Land that I found at ScareFest, I'd already learned there was a sequel. And, even though, as we went into yesterday, I ended up not being the biggest fan of Stake Land, I still figured that I might as well also watch and review the sequel as part of this year's October Fest. Plus, I won't lie, I was kind of curious to see how the story progressed from where the first left off. Going into Stake Land II, I knew little about the general consensus surrounding it, other than it was considered to be a step down from the first. Naturally, that didn't bode well for me, but as always, I reserved judgement until I saw it for myself. I watched the movie on Tubi not too long after I watched the first and, honestly, this might be a hot take, but I think I like this a little bit more. It's still no great shakes, as the low budget still proves to be something of a hindrance, it's, again, not that visually appealing, with the same darkness problem in certain scenes; the big bad isn't that well developed or interesting, and the world-building isn't as well done. But, that said, it has a little more personality to it, which includes the returning characters of Martin and Mister, who have more of a sense of humor about them, and it also introduces some likable and charismatic new characters. What's more, like any good sequel, it further develops the returning characters, and still manages to have some effective dramatic moments. There's also a lot more gore, it's a bit more fast-paced and entertaining (it's significantly shorter, as well), it has some good location work, and there are some skillful instances of editing and direction sprinkled throughout it. Let me sum it up this way: following its premier at the Sitges Film Festival, it debuted in the United States on the Sci-Fi Channel in October of 2016, as one of its original movies, and, as low of a bar as this is, it's still easily one of the best things to carry that dubious label.

(That alternate title in the parentheses appears at the end of the credits, but the movie's opening does say Stake Land II. I don't know why that other one was added, but it's here in the tags, just to be safe.)

Years after Mister left Martin with Peggy, the two of them have settled down in New Eden and had a young daughter named Belle, whom Martin regales with stories about his mentor. However, that happiness is shattered one night when the town is attacked by a group of both vamps and the Brotherhood, led by a scarred and thinking female vamp who personally kills Martin's family. Grief-stricken and bent on revenge, Martin heads back across the Canadian border, searching for Mister. After an encounter with a seemingly benevolent old couple who turn out to be crazed cannibals, he gets an apparent lead when he's told that Mister was last seen heading to the west. He's advised to head to an old brick plant, but when he arrives, it turns out to be a trap set up by a cannibal clan. They throw him into a small arena, where he's intended to fight an opponent called "the Stakelander," who turns out to be none other than Mister. It takes a little bit, but Martin is able to make Mister realize who he is and, working together, they manage to escape, along with a feral girl who was being held hostage. They spend the night in Mister's nearby house, but the next day, the Brotherhood, who are still out for his blood, show up. Mister forces Martin and the girl, whom he names Lady, to take shelter down in the cellar, while he's taken prisoner. The cultists then leave him out in the middle of nowhere, tied up in a crucifixion-like manner, as food for the vamps. He manages to break free and fight the vamps off, but badly injured when one of them leaves her claw dug deep into his flesh. Finding him, Martin has to cauterize the wound, leaving him an infirm sitting duck until he recovers. The next day, three cultists find them, but Martin and Mister manage to kill two, while taking the third, a young man named Juda, hostage. They continue their journey, when they run into a pair of armed men, one of whom, a heavyset, older man named Bat, turns out to be an old friend of Mister's. They take them to their lockdown, a former convent made into a fortified base, where another friend of Mister's, Doc Earl, removes the vamp claw. However, it turns out that the seemingly repentant Juda isn't so trustworthy, and Martin and Mister also learn that they have a mutual enemy in the Mother.

Like I said in my review of the first one, while Nick Damici returned to the sequel as both screenwriter (this time writing the entire screenplay himself) and actor, and Larry Fessenden as producer, Jim Mickle didn't return as director, instead only being involved as executive producer. In his place was actually a directing duo: Dan Berk and Robert Olsen. I couldn't find much info on them, except that they met as a roommates at New York University, and before they collaborated as directors for the first time, they worked together on an episode of a TV show called Sketchy. Olsen also sole directed a couple of short films that Berk acted as a producer and co-writer on, and they first teamed up as directors on a 2014 short called Dispatch. They then made their feature debut the following year, with a movie called Body. After Stake Land II, which, like Mickle before them, they also acted as editors on, they went on to do 2019's Villains with Bill Skarsgard and Kyra Sedgwick, 2022's Significant Other, and 2025's Novocaine.

Martin (Connor Paolo) may now be older and more worldly, but his circumstances at the start of Stake Land II are very similar to how they were in the first: he's lost his entire family and is now traveling across the countryside, taking on both vamps and cultists. The major difference is that he lost them after they'd settled down in New Eden, where they were supposed to be safe and secure, and instead of a naive, shell-shocked youth who's witnessing this world's cruelty for the first time, he's now out for revenge on the vamp behind his misery, "the Mother." Having crossed back over the Canadian border, he searches for Mister, both because he's the only "family" he has left, and also so he can help him find and kill the Mother. He has some run-ins with not only vamps but also people who've resorted to cannibalism, and is lured to an old brick plant that's home to a colony of them. He's forced into a fighting ring where, by sheer luck, his opponent turns out to be none other than Mister. It takes a bit for Martin to make him realize who he is, given how he's older and more grizzled, but once he does, the two of them easily escape their captors, along with the feral girl they name Lady. Afterward, Martin tells Mister what happened, that it was the Mother's doing, and she had both berserker vamps and Brotherhood cultists working together. Most significantly, Martin attempted to kill the Mother by shooting an arrow at her, only for her to catch it in midair and then use it to both impale Peggy and Belle. Mister, however, suggests that Martin simply put it behind him and try to move on, something he, naturally, says he can't do. This feeling sticks with him throughout the story, and by the climax, when they know there's an incoming siege on the convent, he's more determined than ever to kill the Mother, not caring if he also dies in the process.

Needless to say, Martin is a very different person than he was before. Not only is he now just as adept as Mister at fighting and killing vamps, and even manages to save his life after he's been abducted and left at the vamps' mercy, but he's not as merciful or idealistic as he was before. When the three cultists come upon them in the woods while Mister is healing from his wounds, he and Martin kill two of them, and Martin is ready to kill the third one, Juda, but Mister stops him. Mister decides to give Juda the benefit of 

the doubt, both because he's young and because he claims the Brotherhood forced him to do what he did. In response, Martin angrily knocks Juda to the ground, then tells Mister that he doesn't like how he's apparently gone soft. He's also ready to stab Bat when he and another man come upon them, and after he's proven right about how Juda couldn't be trusted, as well as learns that the Mother was merely using him to get to Mister, he coldly slits his throat. During the attack that Juda brings down on the base following his escape, Martin spots the Mother when she orders the 

vamps to retreat, and is ready to chase after and fight her right then, when Mister stops him. Mister tells him that he'll die if he tries it but Martin flat out says he doesn't care. He breaks free of Mister's bear hug and is about to fight him over it, though he quickly simmers down. But the next afternoon, as they wait for darkness to come, he tells Mister, "I'm gonna wait 'till that bitch shows up, and I'm gonna take it to her." Mister tells, "Dying ain't much of a plan, boy," and Martin retorts, "I really don't give a shit. Dead's dead, as long as I take her with me." But, when Mister,

feeling it's as much as his own fight, opts to stay behind and help him kill her, Martin is willing to go along with it. However, all that said, it's clear that he hasn't completely lost his compassion, especially in regards to young girls, due to what happened to his daughter. In fact, his brief interactions with a young girl at the convent are among the movie's most genuinely touching moments, and end it on a hopeful note.

While he's still not as effortlessly cool or badass of a character as someone like Snake Plissken, as with Martin, Mister does get some significant character development here. In fact, he and Martin have had something of a role reversal. Though he's still a skilled, tough vampire hunter and fighter, able to easily, and brutally, get himself and Martin out of the fighting ring after they first meet up, he's also more world and battle weary, and has a bit more of an appreciation for life. When, in the first movie, he told Sister, "We don't do history. It doesn't do anybody any good," it came across like he felt it only got in the way of what needed to be done; here, he tells Martin, "You got your whole life to die, kid. No point rushin' it. Let it go... Man spends his life on revenge, he might as well dig two graves." And he clearly hasn't forgotten, nor is he trying to forget, all those they've lost, as he goes on to say, "I remember everybody, kid. And most of them are dead." This less cynical outlook is further reinforced when he convinces Martin to spare Juda's life, saying, "He's just a boy." That said, he does warn Juda, "You better not be lying, boy, because I'm in a dick-shootin' mood today" (and he did kill one of the other cultists by shooting him right square in the groin). He also gets very close to the feral woman, whom he names "Lady," and she, in turn, becomes attached to him, refusing to leave his side, even when he's recuperating at the convent. Speaking of which, Mister is further humanized when Bat and Doc Earl enter the picture, as it's revealed that the three of them worked together down in Mexico when the outbreak began. They also tell Martin that Mister had a wife and child across the border, but they were both killed by a vamp. Just as with Martin, that was the start of Mister's hatred for vamps and his determination to kill them all. But, most significantly, Mister realizes that the Mother is really after him, as he killed an infant she'd given birth to, and she, in turn, used Martin to draw him out of hiding. Thus, he's now all the more determined to ensure that Martin doesn't needlessly waste his life, and their surrogate father/son relationship comes to a head at the end of the movie.

Another thing that I like about Mister here is that he now has a dry sense of humor about him, as well as some good banter with Martin and Bat. The look on his face when he finally realizes he's been fighting Martin in the arena is pretty funny in and of itself, as is Martin growling, "It's me, you fuckin' idiot!" in the middle of their fight, and his letting out a breathless, "Yes!", when Mister recognizes him while he has him pinned to the ground. The leader of the cannibals, Tattoo Face, orders them to either fight or die, but

Mister defiantly flips him off. And when the guy then shoots at his feet to drive the point home, Mister comes off as little more than irritated when he throws half of a broken spear, getting him right in the throat. After they escape and head to his home, Mister nonchalantly gets ahead of Martin and activates a deadly booby-trap on the front steps; he tells him, "Just a precaution." A good amount of humor comes after Mister is injured. When Martin has to cauterize the wound, Mister lets out a rather pathetic-sounding 

yell/cry that echoes through the night. The next day, he tells Martin to leave him, only for him to say, "I got your back, pappy. I ain't goin' anywhere." to which Mister retorts, "I got your pappy swingin'." This continues when they meet up with Bat, with him and Mister having this exchange: "You son of a bitch. I thought you were dead." "I look dead to you?" "Yeah, you look a little dead. How you doin', old timer?" "You call me old timer again, you're gonna find out." When Mister regains consciousness at the convent after the vamp claw has been removed from 

his body, Bat asks him how he's feeling and he groans, "Oh, like a bucket of shit." He then asks, "I could use a drink. You carrying?", and when Bat says, "It's a little early, ain't it?", Mister says, "Not in China." And at the end, after Martin has killed the Mother, he and Mister have this exchange: "You feel better?" "No... but I don't feel worse." "I feel like shit." "You look like shit."

Lady (Laura Abramsen) is first introduced at the fighting ring, where she's being held captive by the cannibals. However, when Mister kills Tattoo Face, she takes the opportunity to escape and, in the process, releases a caged vamp called the Behemoth, who takes care of some of the other cannibals. Mister then promptly scoops her up in his arms and carries her off with him. Since she grew up in the wild, she's unable to talk, and is constantly curious and fiddling around with everything she sees. She and Mister begin to bond in his house, when she's fiddling around with a music box and he shows her how to play it. Having never heard music before, she's not sure what to make of it when it plays, but is interested enough to where she winds it back up to play again when he shows her how. She very quickly becomes attached to him, not wanting to leave him when the Brotherhood finds the house, and staying by him while he's injured. While they're out in the wilderness, he tells her his name, then names her "Lady," and tries to get her to say both of them. However, they're interrupted by the three cultists, one of whom tries to rape her, but she bites his hand and Martin kills the guy, with Mister killing the other. Once they get to the convent, Lady is very eager to be by Mister again, repeatedly trying to get into his room while he's recovering. When she's allowed in, she climbs up onto the bed and snuggles next to him, as he tells her to take it easy. 

When the third act rolls around, the convent's civilians are evacuated to the nearby mountains to spare them from the next attack, while the armed militia stays behind to fend off the vamps. Mister tries to save Lady from getting caught up in this by tying a rope around her wrists and having her forcefully taken along with the evacuees. But, she manages to free herself from the rope and runs back towards the convent. She runs into a vamp along the way and, instead of fleeing, decides to fight him, grabbing a

rock as a weapon and ferociously yelling at him. That's the last time we see her until at the end, when Martin and Mister escape after killing the Mother. Though she managed to kill the vamp, she was bitten during the scuffle and is already starting to lose her humanity. But when another vamp shows up and threatens her friends, she charges and jumps on top of him, savagely ripping his throat out. However, her stomach is ripped open in the process, and she stumbles back to Mister, collapses in his arms, and manages to croak out his name. Just as Martin did

with Belle at the end of the first one, Mister decides to deliver a mercy kill, both to save her from fully becoming a vampire and to spare her any more of the pain. This seriously affects Mister, as he tells Martin that he can't do this kind of stuff anymore, and gives him a chance to escape by making him go on ahead, while he stays behind to take care of the remaining vamps who followed them from the convent.

Two very welcome new additions to the cast are Mister's old friends from his time in Mexico, Bat (A.C. Peterson) and Doc Earl (Steven Williams). Bat first shows up when he and another man come upon the group in the woods. As he's wielding a bat with nails in it, Martin initially sees him as a threat. But, after asking questions about how they ended up like this and why they have a cultist with them, he quickly diffuses the situation when he recognizes Mister. Happy to see his old friend, who he thought was dead,

he has them taken to their lockdown, where Earl operates on Mister and removes the vamp claw. Williams gets a chance to show off his natural charisma, as when he finishes the operation, and Martin asks how Mister is, he answers, "He's... well, he's mostly mean and ugly, but I think he'll make it." Martin then asks, "So, you're a doctor?", and he answers, "Yeah, that I am. Well, I was a veterinarian but, since the fall, I fix people up mostly. Flesh, blood, bone, it's all the same shit." Bat then shows Martin around the place, and when he comments on the impressive amount of electricity they have running through the place, Bat proudly shows off a pair of generators, which he calls "my twin girls," adding, "They power the whole damn fandango." When they go in to see Mister while he's recovering, Earl, after Mister takes a swig, takes the flask containing Bat's special brand, says, "This is for medicinal purposes only," and drinks some himself. He offers it to Martin, telling him, "It'll make your balls bounce," while Bat himself adds, "Oh, yeah. That stuff's nasty." Significantly, the two of them fill Martin in on their time in Mexico with Mister, noting how the carnage they saw down there changed something deep inside him. As Earl says, "It was like a... like a switch. All he wanted to do was kill," and Bat adds, "Well, he never got the one that killed his family, so, the way I figured it, if he couldn't get the one, he'd get 'em all." However, they themselves have a dark side, too. While interrogating Juda after he's been recaptured, Bat tells him, "We can do this fast, or we can do this slow. It's totally up to you." Juda remains defiant, when Earl, with some pliers in his hand, says, "You know, it's the small nerves that hurt the most. You know what I'm sayin'? And do you realize just how many small nerves you got in your fingertips? Hmm? You got lots." He proceeds to rip off one of Juda's fingernails, while Bat asks him, about the Mother, "Who is this vamp twat, and what does she want with us anyway?" And when Martin slices open Juda's throat and walks out, Bat asks Mister, "Remind ya of someone?"

Following Mister and Martin's talk about facing the Mother together, Bat and Earl show up behind them, the former saying, "You Stakelanders think you're gonna do this on your own, just the two of you? Have all the fun? You got another thing comin'." Earl adds, "Yeah. We been runnin' ever since Mexico. Personally, I'm a little tired of it." Martin warns them they'll all probably die, but Earl says, with a big smile on his face, "Yeah, well, I hear that's gonna happen anyway. So, why don't we make it count?", while Bat 

tells them to cheer up. And sure enough, things quickly go sideways during the final battle, with Bat and Earl ending up pinned down in the kitchen. Realizing there's no hope for them, they sacrifice themselves using an explosive charge that Bat has on him. Before they do, they show that they were more than just good friends, as they say that they love each other, then kiss, before Earl declares, "Now, let's take these bloodsuckers to hell."

As much as Martin wants to kill Juda (Zane Clifford) after they've taken care of his compatriots, Mister opts to let him live due to how young he is. What's more, Juda claims he was forced to cooperate with the Brotherhood, doesn't want to kill people, and begs for mercy. He does seem sincere, even though Martin still doesn't trust him as far as he could throw him, and when they're picked up by Bat, Juda is imprisoned in the base. He befriends a sweet young woman named Billie (Nicole Garies) when she brings him some

food, questioning her about her name while she explains that she was named after her uncle. Later, she hears him blubbering inside his cell, fretting that they're going to kill him, and she attempts to comfort him. He begs her to let him out, insisting that he won't cause any trouble and will just run off, but she says she can't and leaves. When she comes by his cell again while mopping the hallway, she looks through the opening in the cell door's bottom, and sees that he's apparently hanged himself. Panicking, she unlocks and opens the door, only for it to cut away. Bat happens by after his dinner with Martin and Earl, and finds that Juda created a makeshift dummy to make it look as though he hanged himself, murdered Billie, and escaped. He brings the cult and the vamps back to the convent, leading to an attack that is ultimately repelled, but not without losses. Juda gets captured in the aftermath and is interrogated, but refuses to say exactly how many more there are or where they're held up When he won't say anything other than threat, Martin, now knowing that he serves the vampire that killed his family, slices his throat open.

Peggy (Bonnie Dennison) is, without a doubt, the most wasted character in both of these movies. Even though she only appeared very near the end of the first Stake Land, I felt she ended up being one of its more human and well-developed characters, proving more than capable of handling herself against vamps and instantly connecting with Martin. At the start of the sequel, you learn that, after the two of them traveled to New Eden, they settled down, got married, and even had a daughter, Belle (Jaime Bird). But, no

sooner are they introduced at the beginning than they're immediately killed off. When New Eden is attacked by the vamp/Brotherhood army led by the Mother, Martin goes to help the townspeople and tells Peggy to stay at their cabin and protect Belle. Even though she grabs her crossbow, some vamps break into the house, and they abduct both of them, and bring them before the Mother. She then kills them both, using one of Martin's own arrows to impale them at once. If nothing else, they could've had Peggy put even just a little bit of fight, but nope; dead less than five minutes in. And while we don't get much time with Belle, it's still sad, as she seemed like a sweet, cute little girl, enjoying her dad's tales about Mister.

Shortly after he crosses the Canadian border, Martin comes across Karl (Blaine Hart) and Jean (Kathryn Bracht), a seemingly normal older couple. Karl kills a vamp advancing on Martin (though he had him in his arrow's sights), and Jean opts to let him spend the night at their home and give him some food. She serves him stew that has no meat in it, and after he's done, she talks about their son, Walter, who also went up to Canada and had a child. She asks if he knows him but Karl tells her that she needs to face the truth that Walter is likely dead. Jean says, "Give up hope, you might as well lay down and die." She then alludes to Martin, saying, "The boy's lost and alone in a world of woe, and yet, here he is, lookin' for somethin'. That's hope. Times like these... it's all we got to keep us goin'." She has Karl make up Walter's old bed for Martin to sleep in, adding, "Bad things happen to good people. World ain't fair. Never will be. But there's good to be found." But, after that, while he's talking to Karl in Walter's bedroom, with Karl talking about the strange era they're living in, Martin suddenly becomes fatigued and unable to stand up. Things grow sinister after Karl makes him sit down in a chair and suggests he just sleep right there, and just as he's about to doze off, Jean comes running at him with a meat cleaver, revealing that they're cannibals. However, even slightly drugged, Martin has enough strength and sharp senses to fight off and kill them both, before he passes out.

The next day, while milling around in this hardware store, Martin meets Luke (Alex Arsenault), who runs the place. Unlike Karl and Jean, he feels a bit more off and suspicious, especially since, when Martin first enters the store, you can hear one of the Brotherhood's radio broadcasts playing nearby. His manner, with his uncomfortable smile, facial tics, and long pauses while speaking makes it feel as though he's not quite right, but when Martin asks about Mister, Luke tells him that he saw him a few months earlier and gives him an idea of where he was heading. But when Martin arrives at the old brick plant Luke led him to, he's captured by a colony of cannibals and placed into a fighting ring, where he's forced to fight Mister. Sure enough, it turns out that Luke lured him there and is eager to watch the fight. But, when Martin, Mister, and Lady escape, he gets his comeuppance courtesy of the Behemoth Vamp when he's released.

In the first Stake Land, I felt that the character of Jebedia Loven, while maybe not the most well-developed, was the one whose motivations were the most straightforward and to the point; however, when he became a vamp near the end of the movie, his final confrontation with Martin and Mister wasn't that challenging for them. In a way, the Mother (Kristina Hughes) has something of an opposite character dynamic. Not that her motivation, once it's revealed, isn't understandable: Mister killed her vampire baby and she wants revenge. She also proves to be both intelligent and ruthless, as she knows enough about Mister and Martin's relationship to deliberately target the latter and his family in New Eden, knowing he'd look for Mister and bring him out of hiding. But, as a character, there's literally nothing to her. For one, like when Jebedia turned out to be a thinking vamp, there's still no explanation as to why certain vamps are becoming sentient and intelligent, let alone why the Mother is also able to actually breed infants. For another, she doesn't have that much screentime until the third act, and after she kills Peggy and Belle in the opening, we don't see her do enough to make her feel like a legitimate threat. We're told that the Brotherhood now worships her as their messiah, and it's obvious that she has some control over other vamps, not only ordering them to attack New Eden and the convent, but has them retreat when a powerful spotlight called Helios is used to fry the vamps, leading them to target the generator powering Helios in their second siege. But even then, she never feels like this serious enemy that Mister and Martin have to overcome. In fact, Jebedia felt more dangerous in his religious fanaticism, his searing hatred for Mister and what he's doing, the delight he took in leaving him out there to be preyed upon, and how ruthless he was in finding Mister again. There is a scene here where this high-ranking member of the Brotherhood has to break it to the Mother that Mister managed to escape after they captured him, and she yanks him inside her carriage and rips him apart out of anger and frustration, but even after that, she's still not that memorable or intimidating.

Her look isn't that inspired, either: a blonde female vamp who's blind in her right eye, courtesy of Mister, and walks around in a black shawl, often with her hood up. However, I will say that, unlike Jebedia, when she has her final confrontation with Martin and Mister, she's not killed immediately and puts up something of a fight. Said fight still doesn't last as long as you'd want it to, takes place in another dimly lit room, and once she's blinded in the other eye, she's pretty defenseless, but at least she's not killed as

easily. And finally, I think that, in the flashback to when Mister killed her infant, Kristina Hughes' acting isn't too bad, as she does come off as a loving mother who's utterly devastated when her baby is killed, and thus, her motivation is very understandable.

Just like in the first movie, producer Larry Fessenden appears briefly, this time as Biggs, a guy who, at the start of the final battle, is tasked with holding the front part of the compound, while Bat and Earl head to the back. However, when one of the cultists acts as a suicide bomber to blow up the generator that powers Helios, Biggs spots him and tries to stop him. However, the guy uses a riot squad shield to defend himself, and succeeds in blowing the generator up. In the ensuing attack, Biggs is personally killed by the Mother (I think, anyway).

As you can see, the visual style hasn't really improved between movies; in this instance, though, it now comes off as just generic and uninspired. There are some shots that do look nice regardless, mainly in a number of wide views of the countryside, mostly during Martin's journey back over the Canadian border during the opening, and sprinkled throughout the movie afterward, but for the most part, it's that same, desaturated look, with a lot of ugly silvers, yellows, and browns in the palette, and, as always, it's unappealing to look at. And like in the first movie,

there are many scenes, including the entire climax, that are so dark and murky that it can be hard to make out what's going on. Sometimes, that look is actually effective, like the scene in Karl and Jean's house, and there's also an exterior nighttime shot of the dark, misty woods that is a bit atmospheric, but during action scenes, it makes it hard to enjoy something that's supposed to be thrilling. Direction-wise, there is some creative editing at the very beginning, as it opens on a shot of Martin, lit by the glow of a campfire, and cuts back and forth to him with his 

family, telling Belle about Mister. When Belle asks what happened to him, it cuts to a shot of Mister, lit by that same campfire, looking at Martin, and after he tells Belle about how he just disappeared, it cuts back to the campfire, with Martin saying, "They're dead," and Mister tells him, "You're alive. Act like it." It then shows the attack on New Eden and how Peggy and Belle died, as well as Martin's anguish over it, now cutting back and forth from that to the campfire, as Mister tells him, "Put it away, boy. We don't do

history." And then, we get the first wide shot of the campfire, which reveals that Mister was never there, that it was all Martin imagining what he would tell him. Furthermore, when Martin finally does get the chance to tell Mister what happened, it's during this recounting when we see that the Mother used his own arrow to kill Peggy and Belle. As he imagined, Mister tells him to "let it go," but this time, the context is very different. At the convent, there's a moment where, as he's in the cafeteria with Bat and Earl,

Martin sees a young girl with her father, causing him to flashback to the moment when he buried both Peggy and Belle, which also hearkens back to an earlier exchange between him and Mister: "A man spends his life on revenge, he might as well dig two graves." "I did." Finally, there are some plain memorable shots, like Martin and Mister at the campfire; Martin crying over Peggy and Belle's bodies, as New Eden burns down all around him; Mister basically being left crucified as vamp bait

(when he lets out a scream as the camera pulls back to show how he's literally out in the middle of nowhere, there's no sound, a technique, as well as slow motion, that the movie uses at various times), and a shot of Billie at Juda's cell door that's filmed from a low angle, looking up at her (reminds me of a shot of Jack at the freezer door in The Shining).

Likely due to an even lower budget, we don't get the fairly big communities found within the lockdowns like in the first movie; instead, we get a lot of wide open, empty landscapes, with the actual settings being lone buildings and installations that, sometimes, house a relatively large populations. The movie was shot entirely in Saskatchewan, and the filmmakers clearly took advantage of its very lovely countryside, with its fields, hills and mountains, seemingly endless roads that snake through the place, and lush forests. Not only is this place very nice to look at, but its vast

emptiness helps reinforce what Martin says in his first bit of narration, that the human population is not only dying off but most of those who are still alive have given up trying to rebuild (it also sometimes helps reinforce that western vibe of the first one). Furthermore, during Martin's initial lone journey we also see abandoned farms and seemingly deserted towns, some of which seem to double as big auto junkyards (he actually finds a motorcycle that still works in one such place). When he does meet 

someone, like Karl and Jean, they're living in conditions akin to the Dark Ages, with no electricity, forcing them to use oil lamps, and homes that have seen better days. These conditions have also forced them to resort to cannibalism so they can stay alive. Moreover, when Martin enters Luke's store, it seems as though he literally has no one to sell to... so, it seems that he stays afloat by luring unsuspecting travelers to an old brick plant (the Claybank Brick Plant, which is a historical site in Saskatchewan), a 

front for a cannibal colony, and profits in exchange. When Martin enters the seemingly deserted plant, he comes upon a young, innocent-looking woman. But she turns out to be a lure, as he's ambushed from behind and knocked out. Upon awakening, he's led through a nightmarish yard, where prisoners are either chained to the walls, human body parts and bones are being chopped and ground up, and bones are hung up as ghoulish decorations. He's then forced into this 

one section of the building, where he's tossed down into a dirt pit that's been made into an arena. With throngs of people whooping and hollering in the stands around him, he's forced to fight to the death with Mister, and the winner is then intended to fight the Behemoth Vamp. Of course, thanks to Mister, things don't go as planned.

When they escape the plant and the fighting ring, Martin, Mister, and Lady head to what initially looks like an ordinary abandoned house out in the middle of nowhere, but it turns out to be Mister's temporary home, as he rigged the front steps with a long, sharp spike that juts out and impales any intruders. There's also a hatch in the living room floor with a passage that leads outside, through an opening that, it turns out, is across from the house itself. The only other major location after that is the former convent that's been turned into a fortified lockdown. Located

beyond a high barbwire fence that also happens to be electrified, the place has electricity thanks to two generators, and the main defense against vamps is Helios, a spotlight located atop a tower in the front yard.and which is bright and powerful enough to cause them to combust, While the people have done what they can to make the place feel even a little welcoming and somewhere that families can feel safe, its interior comes off as rather claustrophobic and oppressive, with long hallways and corridors, a bland 

paint and color scheme, including in the cafeteria, and despite the generators, the lighting is very, with some lights just barely flickering. There are some rooms that look fair enough, like one outside of the communal shower, where Lady and Billie wait for Martin to finish washing up, but not many. The place even becomes a deathtrap for Bat and Earl when they get trapped in the kitchen, and a storeroom down in the basement is where Martin and Mister have their

final confrontation with the Mother. Some rooms, though, are actually intended to be unpleasant, like the cell where they imprison Juda, with his only contact with the outside being a large opening in the bottom of the door, and the dim interrogation room where he's questioned, then killed by Martin.

As far as the world-building that the first movie did so well, Stake Land II does add to it, but not quite as much as you would hope. Again, at this point, civilization is truly collapsing, with the number of remaining humans getting lower by the day, and many towns, farms, and buildings left abandoned. As Martin says in his opening narration, "There's nothin' left but a dyin' landscape. People stopped tryin' to rebuild a long time ago." He later says that there also aren't many lockdowns left, and most of them are far from the nice sanctuaries they used to be.

Significantly, we get to see the cannibals that were only mentioned before. Some of them, like Karl and Jean, seem to do it out of desperation, and likely madness, but others, like the colony that forces Martin and Mister fight, do it out of sheer malice and sadistic pleasure. As for the Brotherhood, instead of simply seeing the vamps as having been resurrected to enact God's will, they're now actively working with them, and even being led by the Mother. Unfortunately, none of this amounts to much in the 

long run. The cannibals are forgotten after Martin, Mister, and Lady escape the brick plant, and the Brotherhood doesn't feel as unsettling and dangerous as it did before, even with the guidance of a sentient vamp, mostly because of how underdeveloped the Mother herself is. And while the first movie, obviously, wasn't exactly an epic, it felt like it had a much wider scope due to the various locations the characters traveled through; here, the lack of any truly big towns or nicely-sized, bustling lockdowns (after it was talked up so much in the first, we barely see anything of New Eden), and the story taking place within one general area make the sequel feel so much smaller.

Getting to the vamps, Martin, early on, finds that those that aren't following the Mother and the Brotherhood have taken to coming out before the sun has completely set, desperate to find any prey. This is an extension of how, near the end of the first movie, Peggy told Martin about the thin ones she was seeing around her restaurant. You also learn that they can be taken out with extremely bright UV light in general, as the Helios spotlight at the convent is used to fry those that get inside the perimeter during their first attack. The Mother, in addition to being another

thinking vampire, is also a new type called a "breeder," as she's actually able to bare offspring. Again, interesting idea, but little is made of it, nor is there any attempt at even suggesting how this could've come about. And while the first had various memorable vamps, here, the only truly memorable ones, aside from the Mother, is the Behemoth, whom we see at the fighting ring, attacking Luke once he's released from his cage, and Lady when she becomes one, mainly due to the audience's built in sympathy

for her and how she's obviously struggling to keep her humanity. Otherwise, there's not much else to say about the vamps, as their makeup design isn't that drastically different, and they come off even more as just fast-running zombies, instead of the feral, animalistic creatures they were before (in fact, those first few that we see in daylight are akin to traditional, slow-moving zombies, due to their bad physical condition and stiff, sluggish movements).

The first Stake Land was already a pretty violent and gory movie, but this one doubles, and maybe even triples, down on it. Less than five minutes in, a guy is shot in the head, a cultist is speared right through the throat, and Peggy and Belle are shish-kebabbed by one of Martin's own arrows, and following the opening credits, one vamp is furiously stabbed to death, another gets an arrow through the head, and Jean gets fatally shot, while Karl receives a meat cleaver into the top of his head. When Martin is captured by the cannibals, you see the grisly sights of

them chopping up and processing the meat, body parts, and bones of their victims, and he and Mister escape the fighting ring when the latter throws one half of a spear and gets Tattoo Face in the throat, before the unleashed Behemoth Vamp serves Luke some karma and rips him apart. After that, a cultist gets impaled by the booby-trap on Mister's front step; Mister tears one vamp's throat out before, getting his midsection sliced open by another who leaves her claw dug deep into his flesh; the Brotherhood general is ripped apart by the Mother and we see blood 

pouring out of her carriage during the attack; one cultist gets a tomahawk to the back another gets shot right in the crotch; a flashback shows when the Mother's infant got an arrow in the head and she promptly got one to her eye; Juda kills Billie offscreen by inflicting a bloody head wound, and when he's interrogated, you get a truly wince-inducing shot of his fingernail being pried off, before Martin slices his throat open; and various people and vamps die in gruesome ways during the attacks on 

the convent, including impaling, throats being ripped open, and close-ups of vamps' fried bodies after they've been exposed to Helios. In the end, the Mother is killed when Martin hacks her head off and Lady brutalizes one vamp with a rock, then bites another in the neck, only to get sliced in the stomach by him, before Mister has to put her out of her misery.

Fortunately, the sequel makes very liberal use of some not so great visual effects, even more so than the first Stake Land already did. In fact, the only ones I can think of that the camera gets fairly close to are when the vamps are fried by Helios during the first attack on the convent, and even then, it's just some digital smoke placed over burn makeup, and they're onscreen very briefly. Other than that, and some other digital smoke effects meant for when the vamps early on are starting to burn from the sunlight, there really are no visual effects to speak of, as the small handful of explosions you have here are very real.

As I've already said, while the first Stake Land had some emotional moments but, on the whole, was rather cold and soulless, with the characters little more than ciphers, this one has more humanity and personality to it, thanks to the addition of some humor and some of the new characters, like Lady, Bat, and Earl. But, while they do have more to them, and have also evolved since the first, Martin and Mister still aren't the most charismatic or memorable of leads. Martin, especially, still comes off as pretty monotone (likely meant as a result of what he's been through

and the path he's on), especially in his narration, which, though not as constant as in the first, is just as pretentious, overwritten, and emotionless as before. Still, Connor Paolo does seem to be trying to put a little more emotion into the character, with his enraged yells when he's killing vamps early on and how Martin is more ruthless in general. What's more, he does quite well in the opening, when Martin tells Belle about Mister, and his absolute horror and anguish over her and Peggy being killed. But, 

overall, it's still not the greatest performance. Similarly, while Nick Damici gives a more evolved, life-valuing portrayal of Mister, with his soft side coming through in his relationship with Lady, he's still not very compelling or charismatic. When Lady becomes a vampire during the third act and he has to stake her, Damici does convey how this just about breaks Mister, and yet, I don't find it quite as impactful as when Martin had to do the same for Belle at the end of the first movie (and even that moment's impact didn't linger too much).

As nice as Mister and Lady's relationship is, I, ironically, get more out of a few brief moments between Martin and this young girl at the convent, whom he first sees in the cafeteria. When he's alone at his table, a ball rolls over and bumps against his foot. He picks it up, the girl comes over, they softly say, "Hi," to each other, he gives her the ball back, and her father brings her back over to their table. Then, at the end of the movie, after Mister has forced him to escape without him, Martin comes upon the convent's survivors as they head up into the mountains. The 

same girl spots him, runs up to him, they smile warmly at each other, and join the others, holding hands as they walk. And speaking of the ending, the final moments between Martin and Mister, which I'll go into more detail on later, are fairly touching in and of themselves. It's weird, I know, but those brief moments felt the most human and genuinely tender to me.

While it's still not the most fast-paced movie, Stake Land II doesn't feel as slow as the first, with action scenes that come in more rapid succession and last longer, as opposed to the first's fairly short attacks and fights. Also unlike the first, which has an anti-climactic final confrontation, then goes on for a little longer before it just ends, this one has more of a significant climax, albeit still concluding in a quiet, open-ended manner. And because it's much shorter at just 85 minutes, it's not as much of a slog to sit through as the first sometimes is.

During the opening, after Martin tells Belle about Mister, he walks out of their cabin to get some water from the pump, when he hears a warning siren. He runs back inside, grabs a shotgun, and when Peggy asks if he wants her to come with him, he tells her to stay and watch Belle. It then cuts to him in New Eden, as he tries to assure a hysterical man that he needs to stay close to him, when he suddenly gets shot in the head. Martin looks to his right to see a cultist reloading his gun and he throws a spear,

getting him through the throat. He tries to head back, when a vamp pins him to the ground. The retrieved spear is all that's keeping him from getting bitten. Back at the cabin, Peggy is packing up, when she hears the front door rattling. She calls for Martin, but when she doesn't get an answer, she grabs her crossbow and points it at the door. However, in the next part of this montage, both she and Belle are being held hostage by the vamps, who've brought them before the Mother. She seems to curiously cock her head at them, specifically when she notes how

Peggy is holding Belle in her arms. She then impales them both, and Peggy almost immediately drops to the ground. The sound of Martin's anguished yells and crying are followed by the shot of him on his knees, crying at their felled bodies, as New Eden burns all around him.

The opening credits consist of a montage of the dying landscape, which Martin makes his way through, while, at the same time, narrating about what's become of the country, how the Mother destroyed his one chance of happiness, and that he's now searching for Mister. You also see him practicing his staking and stabbing techniques, and then, while he's making his way through a lovely clearing with some trees here and there, and a bit of dirt road running through it, a very slow-moving vamp attempts to get the drop 

on him just as he's settling down for a rest. He hears her coming, though, and crouches down, trying to come off as oblivious, before swinging around, knocking her to the ground, and furiously stabbing her with a hatchet-like weapon akin to a tomahawk. Once he's finished her off, he picks up his bag, as well as his bow and arrow, and continues on. When he comes upon a small, abandoned town, he's lucky to find a motorcycle that still works and drives it down the road. He stops at a seemingly abandoned bit of farmland, where another vamp slowly approaches 

him, despite the sun having not yet completely set, causing him to emit smoke. Martin raises his bow and aims at him, only for another arrow to come from the side and get the vamp in the head. Karl and Jean show up, and they make Martin feel at ease enough to where he takes them up on their offer of food and lodging for the night.

That night, as it storms outside, Martin, after eating the food that Karl and Jean provided for him, is looking through a bunch of newspaper clippings about the outbreak that Karl has collected in the room that belonged to their son, Walter. He clearly starts to feel strange, which doesn't go unnoticed by Karl. His legs give out underneath him and Karl catches him, then guides him over to a chair. There, as Martin seems to be about ready to fall asleep, Karl suggests he just sleep right there, picking up the one candle

lighting the room and blowing it out. After a few seconds, Jean comes charging in with a meat cleaver, but Martin still has enough of his senses to dodge her, causing her to stab it into the top of the chair. She pulls the cleaver loose, but Martin grabs her and throws her into some shelves across from them, causing her to drop it. Karl, who walked out of the room, comes back with a shotgun, but Martin dodges when he fires, causing him to hit and kill Jean instead. Horrified at what he's done, Karl rushes to her side, and Martin takes the opportunity to put the cleaver

into the top of his head, before he passes out. The next morning, he wakes up, lying on the floor across from the bodies, and, still reeling from whatever they used to drug him, slowly gets to his feet and staggers out of the house.

After Luke sends Martin to the brick plant, he parks and chains up his motorcycle inside it, when a figure, clearly a child, runs past a doorway behind him. Sensing this, he gets up, wielding a makeshift stake, and follows after her. He finds her standing in the back of one room and tries to comfort her, saying he's not going to hurt her, when a couple of men come up behind him and whack him in the back of the head. Following that, Martin is led through the yard, where he sees the hideous things this colony of cannibals are

doing to others that have been lured to them. He's then forced into the fighting pit, surrounded by numerous people yelling at the top of their lungs, and sees Luke standing among the spectators on the platform in front of him. The guy in charge, Tattoo Face, introduces the audience to the Behemoth Vamp, kept in a cage on the opposite side of the platform he's sitting on, and then announces that Martin is to fight to the death with a fighter called "the Stakelander," who turns out to be Mister. Because he 

doesn't recognize Martin, Mister immediately goes on the attack. He walks up to Martin and kicks him in the head, and after Martin dodges another kick, the two of them exchange punches. Martin breaks free of a hold and delivers another punch, and after they trade some more punches, they get into an arm lock and bash their heads together, nearly knocking each other out. Tattoo Face tosses a spear into the ring, which Martin grabs, though he's still, obviously, acting defensively. He tries to hit Mister with the spear's side, breaking it in half on his left shoulder at one point, after which

Mister delivers a rapid series of blows to the gut and flings him to the floor. He manages to pin him down, and is about to stab him with the spear's pointed end, when he sees the skull pendant he left for Martin and finally realizes who he is.

Once he does, Mister refuses to go on with the fight, when Tattoo Face shoots at the ground at their feet and warns them that they'll be killed if they don't. Mister picks up the pointed half of the broken spear and throws it at Tattoo Face, getting him in the neck. When he collapses, Lady, who's been kept chained at his feet, takes her chance to escape. She jumps down into the pit while holding onto the rope that opens the cage the Behemoth is contained in. While the Behemoth makes a meal out of Luke, Mister picks

Lady up in his arms and carries her bridal style, as he and Martin flee the arena. A guard tries to stop them but Martin easily knocks him to his knees and Mister kicks him right in the face on his way out. Later, at Mister's home, as Martin tells him what happened at New Eden, you see more of the flashback, which includes gruesome details of the vamps attacking the town and feasting on some of the civilians. This is also when it's revealed that Martin fired an arrow from a distance to try to hit the Mother, only for her to catch it in midair and use it to stab both Peggy and Belle.

The next day, the three of them are in the house's living room, when they hear the sound of someone being impaled by the booby-trap on the front steps. Mister immediately jumps into action, telling Martin to move the table, while outside, two cultists attempt to break the door down. Having uncovered a hatch in the floor leading down into the basement, Mister sends Martin and Lady down there, giving them a bag of supplies, before closing the hatch. By this point, the cultists have broken into the house, and while

Mister manages to floor one of them, the leader gets him in the back of the head with the butt of his rifle. Outside, Martin and Lady emerge to see Mister being dragged to a pickup truck by more cultists. He has to keep Lady from running down into the fray, as she's desperate to help. He reassures her that Mister is hard to kill, and the two of them escape into the countryside. Because of her feral senses, Lady is able to figure out the direction they went in, and is now the one leading Martin. Mister then finds himself virtually crucified out in the middle of nowhere, as the sun rapidly sets.

Once it's dark, it's not long before he can hear the sound of vamps in the nearby woods, with one then emerging. As soon as he spots Mister, he rushes at him, and then jumps at him with both of his legs pointing forward. He hits him with enough force to break the cross off at the base, and though his arms are still tied to the perpendicular part of the cross, Mister is able to get to his feet. The vamp charges at him again, but he whacks him in the head with that big chunk of wood and knocks him to the ground.

While the vamp is bent over, Mister literally sits on his back, puts his legs on either side of his head, gets him into a lock, and twists his head from side to side until he hears the spine break. But, no sooner is he trying to catch his breath from this, than another vamp shows up. As he approaches, Mister tries as hard as he can to yank his hands free, which he does in the nick of time. He then turns around and repeatedly punches the vamp in the face, before appearing to jam his hand into his neck and rip his

throat out! After the vamp collapses, Mister growls, "I hate vampires," only for a female vamp to jump onto him from behind. He struggles to get her off, when she digs her claws deep into his midsection. Before she can do any more damage, an arrow gets her in the head and she falls to the ground, as he loudly groans in pain and collapses, holding his bleeding stomach wound. Martin and Lady come running to his aid, and Mister says that the vamp left one of her claws in him. Telling him not to remove it, as it's stopping him from bleeding even worse, he then tells him that he's

going to have to cauterize the wound. Martin takes a flare from his bag, lights it, and puts it to Mister's wound, causing him to yell and almost cry in pain (I don't think it was intentional but, like I said before, the sounds he makes come off as kind of funny).

The next day, the cultists return to the spot and find that Mister has escaped. The leader orders three of his men to find him, when the Mother arrives, carried around in a special sort of royal carriage that protects her from the sun. Knowing she's going to be displeased, he stands next to the carriage and admits that Mister has escaped. He tells her that he's sent others after him and apologizes, asking for forgiveness. But the Mother responds by reaching out from the protective drapes, grabbing him by the 

throat, and yanking inside. The thing shakes violently and blood pours out through its bottom part as the Mother brutally kills her subordinate. And then, just as violently as it began, the shaking and bloodletting stop. Elsewhere, Martin leaves to go find some willow tree bark to help with Mister's pain. While he's gone, the three cultists the general sent show up, thinking they're lucky when they see how he's in no condition to fight. Moreover, one of them attempts to rape Lady, only for her to bite his hand. In retaliation, he smacks her and prepares to roughly have his way 

with her, when Martin gets one of his comrades with a tomahawk from nearby. Mister then uses the gun he was hiding under his blanket to shoot the would-be rapist right in the crotch, before he and Martin force the last one, Juda, to surrender. Though he doesn't like keeping him alive, Martin forces him to help carry the sled they've made for Mister. It's not too long before they're found by Bat and taken to the old convent.

The next major scene is when, as he's recovering from the surgery that Doc Earl performed to remove the vamp's claw, Mister dreams about his past encounter with the Mother. The memory/dream starts with a man eating the grilled carcass of some kind of animal (while glancing over at pornographic pictures like an absolute boss), when he hears a clatter nearby and immediately gets to his feet. Wielding a shotgun, he walks to the edge of his campsite and scans the woods, when the Mother appears behind him. In the 

next cut, he's being dragged across the ground, and then, it cuts to the Mother, as she's sitting by the fire, trying to feed her crying vampire baby (we can assume he's trying to feed him with the man's blood). Suddenly, the baby is hit with an arrow, and the Mother looks up to see Mister emerge from the darkness, wielding his bow. She screams in rage and anguish, only for him to fire another arrow, which gets her in her left eye. Mister then awakens from the dream with a start.

That night, Bat is doing his rounds, when he comes upon the gruesome scene in Juda's cell, finding Billie lying there dead, while the cultist himself has escaped. He then hears the sirens go off and the men grab their weapons, with Earl asking if Helios is ready. When Martin asks what Helios is, Earl enthusiastically answers, "Sunshine in the nighttime, baby!" Outside, a truck plows through the main gate, and the cultists and vamps begin their attack, as everyone rushes outside to defend their base. Helios is activated and aimed at a spot where the cultists are

firing on the defenders to make way for the vamps. The latter are immediately fried by the light, as Earl, while firing back on the cultists, says to himself, "Burn, baby, burn. That's Helios for your ass!" Inside, Mister and Lady see what's happening through a window and he heads outside, telling Lady to stay put. In the yard, Earl takes out some cultists, while a vamp faces off with a guy wielding a pitchfork. Though the latter is clearly outmatched, the vamp gets impaled through the back and out the front by Martin, with Bat then coming in and smashing his head in. 

They suddenly hear this ungodly scream, and look outside the perimeter to see the Mother. Recognizing her as the one that killed Peggy and Belle, Martin drops his spear, pulls out a stake, and stomps towards her. The vamps quickly flee the grounds, the Mother's scream obviously having been a call to retreat, and she turns to join them. Mister, seeing Martin, has to grab and subdue him from chasing after her, and the two of them nearly get into a fight over it. The next day, the death toll is revealed to have been six, 

despite the advantage that Helios gave them. It's also revealed that Juda has been found and recaptured, and while Martin is ready to kill him right then and there, Bat orders for him to be put into the basement. He then assures Martin that they'll make Juda pay for what he's done.

The climax begins that night, as the convent is evacuated, and Martin, Mister, Bat, and Earl, as well as some other volunteers, stay behind to fend off the coming attack and kill the Mother. When the vamps arrive, it's from the back, and Bat, Earl, and another man run back there to deal with it, leaving the guy named Biggs to guard the front. The vamps emerge from the woods behind the compound, as Bat and Earl take their positions, waiting for them to get close enough to shoot. Elsewhere, the cultists, unbeknownst to them, are rigging one of their own with an

explosive. Bat and Earl then notice that the Mother is motioning for the vamps to hold back, and Bat decides to hell with it and is about to start shooting, when Biggs yells that there's a runner up front. The cultist armed with the bomb runs towards the shed housing the compound's two generators, using a shield to deflect Bigg's rifle shots, and dives into it. The bomb explodes, knocking out all power to the base, including to Helios. With that, the Mother orders the vamps to charge, sending Bat and Earl

running back up front. Elsewhere, the civilians who've fled the compound make their way across the open country, when Lady hears the explosions back in the distance. She then knees the guy who's leading her with the rope tied around her hands and runs off back towards the base.

The vamps swarm the grounds, while on the roof, Mister lights a flare and uses it to get the Mother's attention. He yells for her to come and get him, as she finishes feeding on Biggs. Out in the country, Lady is faced with a stray vamp, while the others manage to get inside the convent. Bat, Earl, and two men with them are chased into the kitchen, and though they close and lock the door behind them, find the other door into the room blocked by armed cultists. Elsewhere, the Mother chases Mister down into the basement, and they face off in a storage area. Martin

jumps down on her from behind, staking her in the back, but he misses the heart. Before Mister can retaliate, the Mother kicks him in the torso, then grabs and throws him into some furniture covered in sheets. She swipes at, then grabs him and lifts him up, when Martin comes up behind her and stabs her repeatedly in the back. She drops Mister, but quickly flings Martin back across the floor. Mister manages to grab one of his dropped weapons, when the Mother gets him by the throat, lifts him, and screeches in his face. Back in the kitchen, Bat and Earl find themselves

pinned down, with both of their comrades shot dead, and the vamps still trying to get in through the main door. With no other recourse, they both know what they have to do. Meanwhile, Mister stabs the Mother in her other eye, leaving her completely blind. She stumbles back into the middle of the room and blindly swipes at the air, as Martin and Mister move around her. Standing behind her, Mister growls, "I'm over here, bitch," and she turns around and swipes at him. Martin then charges and stabs her from behind, and

he and Mister take turns doing so when she's focused on one of them specifically. At one point, she manages to uppercut and floor Martin, then tries to kill Mister, swiping at him furiously. However, he dodges her and gets her in the midsection with a tomahawk. He goes in for the kill, but her struggling causes him to fall to the floor. He passes the weapon to Martin, telling him to finish her off, and he comes up behind her and furiously hacks at her neck until he beheads her. He holds up her decapitated head, showing it to Mister, then drops it to the floor.

Martin and Mister run out of there, while Bat and Earl prepare to sacrifice themselves with an explosive charge, as the vamps are about to break down the kitchen door. As soon as they do, the men activate the charge, screaming as they do. The explosion blasts its way up through the roof, which Martin and Mister see as they escape into the countryside. Heading through a small pass, they come upon Lady, who killed the vamp she ran into, but when she turns to face them, they see that she got bit in the process. Martin is ready to stake her, but Mister motions for him to wait.

As Lady softly growls at them, Martin tries to tell Mister that she's done for. She lurches towards them and Mister tries to get through to her, when she sees another vamp approaching them from behind. That's enough to make Lady retrieve some of her humanity, as she charges between them, tackles the vamp to the ground, and tears into his neck. While she kills him, she stands up and turns around, showing that she got sliced open across the front in the process. She grabs at her bleeding wound, then staggers at Mister and

collapses in his arms. As she attempts to speak his name, revealing the fangs that have developed in her mouth, Mister removes a stake from his boot holster and uses it to free her. He lays her down on the ground and shuts her eyes, now almost completely broken. He tells Martin that he can't do it anymore, as they hear the sound of more vamps approaching. He tells him that he'll buy him some time to escape, but Martin, naturally, isn't eager to leave him behind to die. Mister tells him, "A man wants his son... to be 

better than he is," and Martin is moved close to tears by this. The two of them have one final half-embrace, putting their foreheads together, before Mister tells Martin to "git." He runs off and, as the vamps round the corner behind Mister, who's waiting for them, he narrates, "I don't know what happened to him. Guess it doesn't matter. But I know I'll see him again... in this hell, or the next." Mister then gets up, faces the vamps, and begins fighting them off, as the screen cuts to black. It comes back up on the next day, and ends as Martin joins the survivors in their trek towards the mountains.

Like Jim Mickle, composer Jeff Grace also didn't return from the first Stake Land. Instead, the score this time is the work of Redding Hunter, whose only other composing credits include a film called Long Nights Short Mornings and a short called Ode to Joy; he also wrote and performed a song for Dan Berk and Robert Olsen's followup film, Villains. While his music for Stake Land II, like Grace's work on the first, tends to be more low-key, pensive, and melancholic than you might expect, opening with a very light little piano theme, and contains similar music for scenes like the aftermath of the first attack on the convent and other emotional moments (the last scene between Martin and Mister is scored with a sad-sounding, digital piece), there's also more action-centric music this time around, notably in themes that often consist of a pounding drum beat. What's more, the score sometimes emphasizes the western sort of vibes to this setting, with some twanging, melancholic guitar pieces and the like. Overall, it's not as memorable as the first movie's score, and none of those themes are reused, but it works well enough for what it is.

Some may find it inferior to the first but, while it's not something I ever see myself watching again, I found Stake Land II to be more enjoyable. It does still suffer from the issues of so-so characters, an unappealing visual style, and scenes that are way too dark, and, in addition, its villain leaves a lot to be desired and the world-building isn't as accomplished as the first. But, that said, it has a bit of a faster pace, more action scenes, more gruesome makeup effects, as well as even fewer bad visual effects, nice location

work, some instances of inspired direction and editing, an alright music score, and, most crucially, a bit more personality and humanity due to some of the new characters, as well as more of a sense of humor, and there's also as an attempt to further develop both Martin and Mister. Still, it's nothing amazing, and it doesn't surprise me that there hasn't been a third one (though Nick Damici has expressed interest in doing it), but I found it easier to sit through.