In an early scene that establishes the backstory for Martin, the teenage narrator of Stake Land, there’s no mistaking the fact that the film fits squarely into the grisliest corner of the horror genre. Martin’s family is on the road and has sought shelter in a lonely barn at nightfall as a radio announcer warns listeners to beware of a vaguely defined but deadly menace. When Martin (Connor Paolo of Gossip Girl) ventures into the darkness after his dog dashes away, he encounters Mister, a vampire-hunter who has tracked his quarry to the spot where Martin’s fortunes are about to turn. The pair edge back into the barn, tense as Marines inspecting a hovel in Falluja, to find that one of the carriers of an unstoppable vampire-zombie plague has already made a sloppy meal of Martin’s parents, and his infant sister dangles from the creature’s jagged maw.