Season 1 of ‘Stake This!’, a web serial written and directed by Jennifer Stackpole, Lorena Stackpole, and Mina Kim has season 1 online currently and is brave in that it uses an electronic backdrop to create some of the scenes. It does this in a stylised way that needs little in authenticity and thus defeats some of the issues caused by low budget.
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| Zeta Zeta Zeta |
In episode zero – a teaser and the background to the generic arc we meet Dea (Katie Oellerich), a new pledge to the rather exclusive sorority Zeta Zeta Zeta. Of course, the sorority is run by (and consists of) vampires. They are – in order of age – Fane (Lorena Stackpole), Ruxandra cel Ray (Jennifer Stackpole) and Mika Nim (Mina Kim).
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| Ari Welkom as Beeslebob |
The show also introduces a demon by the name of Beezlebob (Ari Welkom), a werewolf named Jerry (Joey Borgogna) and
the Abigail Williams (Abigail Marlowe) who has survived the centuries by subsisting on vampire blood and is still angry at Mika for blowing her cover in Salem. Ruxandra has spent centuries searching for “the one” – every time this prophesised being is spotted, Beezlebob shows and the one tragically dies.
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| the vampires |
The vampires seem to wear large sun hats and shades and survive fine in the sun otherwise. Ruxandra specialises in cooking blood sausage (and had a one night stand with Lestat) and we discover that garlic effects vampires differently but at best can be classed as a hallucinatory drug. Most interestingly Mika is a kyonsi. As the
homepage tells us, “
Although she quickly outgrew the jiang-shi* hop, the preferred gait of her type, Mika still has an aversion to running water and a personal fear of cute, human babies.”
The first season simply teases us with potential, the characters quickly become rounded and I am looking forward to season 2. Currently there is no imdb page.
*jiang-shi and gang-shi are alternate spellings of the westernised kyonsi.
8 comments:
I've actually seen this show and found it charming.
Thanks for the positive review! One correction, however. The writers/directors of the webseries are Jennifer Stackpole, Lorena Stackpole, and Mina Kim.
Will send an email requesting the correction...
Eternal appreciation to you and your readers for the positive feedback. We hope to continue with the misadventures of Mika, Ruxandra, and Fane should the funds for a second season surface. (As you know, the series is completely self-funded and DIY.) For the meantime, we here at Cardboard Keytar Productions celebrate and embrace the attention of genre fansites like your own.
Wishing you a bloody good summer,
Lorena Stackpole
"Stake This!" co-producer
Mina and Lorena - thanks for the comments and the show - the article has been amended with the full credits :)
Thanks so much for the kind words and for the corrections!
All the best,
Jennifer Stackpole
No problem :)
Hate to be nit-picky, but the third vampire's name is "Fane," not "Fabe." I assume this is a typo, natch. Thanks again; I look forward to your next blog entries.
nit-pick away :)
It was indeed a typo - (indeed b is next to n on the old keyboard, which suggests a finger interface slip-up) - but I'm genuinely happy for typos and errors to be pointed out as self-proofing often goes astray.
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