Stake Land (2010)

  This was a lot like Book of Eli, but with vampires.  Not a bad little film.  Looks a little bit under budgeted. 

In the near future, vampires have wiped out most of the urban centers.  A young boy named Martin (Connor Paolo) survives an attack that kills the rest of his family, thanks to a vampire hunter known only as Mister (Nick Damici).  Mister takes the boy in and trains him to defend himself as they travel north, toward a place of relative safety called New Eden.  Along the way, they rescue a nun (Kelly McGillis), and are joined by a pregnant girl (Danielle Harris), and another guy named Willie (Sean Nelson).  They run afoul of a fanatical religious group called the Brotherhood that believes vampires were sent by God to serve them, and must add humans to the list of things to be on guard against.

Like I said, it's not bad.  It isn't exactly great, though.  Part of that is because the acting feels second-rate.  I only recognized one name from the cast list because I don't watch daytime television.  Paolo and Harris were both series regulars on One Life to Live, as was Kelly McGillis.  I haven't seen her in anything since Top Gun so her appearance came as somewhat of a shock to me.  The most recognizable face in the entire movie is the leader of the Brotherhood, Michael Cerveris.  He played the Observer in Fringe and Mr. Tiny in Cirque du Freak:  The Vampire's Assistant.  Even those aren't exactly household names.

Still, there hasn't exactly been a flood of good vampire movies recently so if you're tired of watching the same three over and over, give Stake Land a shot.

In other news, I watched season 2 of Copper from BBC America.  I really enjoyed the first season but this one didn't grab me at all.  It felt terribly derivative, like I had seen all of these plot points before and on better shows.  Specifically, Elizabeth Morehouse's (Anastasia Griffith) opium addiction reminded me so much of Alma (Molly Parker) from Deadwood that I couldn't see anything else.  I was bored with the Tammany Hall storyline, I actually cheered when Annie (Kiara Glasco) was written out, and I completely tuned out for the "let's hunt down John Wilkes Booth" episode.  I don't honestly know now if I'll even watch the third season.