If bloodthirsty undead zombie action isn’t usually your thing, you might be temped to pass on Stake Land. But like Danny Boyle’s 28 Days Later and Let the Right One In, the brilliant reworking of vampire tropes by Swedish novelist-screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist, Stake Land upends many of the expectations moviegoers are likely to bring to a genre film. It also makes grimly imaginative and occasionally audacious use of some of the religious and political themes threading through contemporary American culture.
