Movies
Danielle Harris Reveals ‘Stake Land’ Webisodes!
While visiting the set of Dark Sky Films’ Stake Land in the cold, upstate Catskill Mountains, leading lady Danielle Harris spilled the beans about a series of webisodes that were shot for each of the main characters in the film. You can read all about them beyond the break. Being helmed by Jim Mickle (Mulberry Street), the flick takes place following a global spread of vampirism.
Kelly McGillis plays a nun who joins a small team of survivors – including Danielle Harris – as they make a treacherous journey north to safety through the war-torn U.S.
With there being so little dialogue in Stake Land (watch for our full report soon), and virtually no back stories, some of the lead actors and actresses in the movie have directed their own shorts, which will be available for viewing before the film’s release.
“I just directed a webisode for Stake Land,” Danielle Harris told Bloody-Disgusting. “The webisodes are a nice little look inside our lives before we met. They’re short, maybe four to seven minutes each. It’s a great chance to sort of see all the directors’ styles, and how we differ from one another, which I don’t think is done very often, giving the fans the chance to sort of become emotionally invested in these characters before they watch them. A little snippet into their lives.”
Further conversation revealed that Danielle Harris would be singing in her back story.
“I come out in a beautiful, risqué, very short, cleavage gown… I’m just kidding. No, there’s no Sequin gowns in this movie! It’s just a nice way to sort of introduce who Belle is. We’re sort of having a little honkey tonk. We’re singing – Jim Mickle (director) and Adam Folk (producer) were out there with me – one playing the banjo, one playing the guitar. I got a chance to sing, and I have a horrible cold – I don’t have the greatest voice to begin with. I guess I can kind of carry a tune. But, um… I gave it my all. I’m the girl you usually have to bribe when I’m drunk – cause I don’t get up and do kareoke, no matter how much money you put on the table. I did it once, because Quentin Tarantino directed me up on stage and I just couldn’t resist, but other than that, I just don’t get up on stage. So – this was new for me. It will be interesting to see. I think it will be on the soundtrack, which I’m really nervous about.”
When asked if it was ever considered to go into a studio:
“Jim is really about leaving it real and keeping it real and not having it look like we’ve done it in the studio, pitch corrected. I don’t really care, to be honest,” said Danielle, shrugging it all off. “Whatever. I’m not a singer, I’m an actress. But it was fun to do. Again, I have this cold, and I couldn’t really hear myself, so it’s probably a little bit off key. Or a lot off key. But I got the crowd going, which is all that really mattered. And then I left, drove six hours, slept, got up and drove to the mountains and watched the sun rise for my short. I shot for twelve hours today. And now I’m going to bed…”
Judging from the unprecedented box office success of Kane Parsons’ Backrooms adaptation, you’ve likely already seen the liminal horror hit that managed to make audiences afraid of empty hallways and bad wallpaper. And now that so many of us have already entered the yellow labyrinth (some of us more than once), the time has come to discuss the spoiler-filled details that make the movie so fascinating in the first place.
And if there’s one element here that makes the Backrooms movie stand out from any previous lore/mythology, it has to be the genius addition of the Still Life entities. Warped recreations of real people that somehow wandered into the Complex, these misremembered creatures are responsible for some of the most disturbing imagery of 2026 – as well as laugh-out-loud memes created by one of the film’s very own concept artists.
However, true to Parsons’ word that the movie would rely heavily on practical effects, each of these distorted monsters was brought to life by real actors under heavy layers of makeup and prosthetics (with the occasional splash of CGI enhancements). While Anora and If I Had Legs I’d Kick You actress Ivy Wolk wasn’t among these performers, despite what Letterboxd might have you believe, the creature cast did benefit from veteran players with plenty of genre experience.
For starters, Alien: Romulus alumni Robert Bobroczkyi (who previously brought that film’s horrific Offspring to life during its most memorable sequence) plays the flick’s main antagonist, the Still Life version of Captain Clark. And though there was some obvious CGI involved in making the character’s peg-leg and nightmarish face more believable, Bobroczkyi’s monstrous performance and his natural 7’7″ frame helped to make that final chase sequence a clear highlight among this year’s genre offerings.
The film’s Texas-Chain-Saw-inspired “dinner” scene also features a freaky collection of less-aggressive Still Life creatures in the form of the Bearded Man, the Red-Headed Woman and, strangest of them all, the cheekily named “Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life” (who earned this title among fans and crewmembers as a reference to his apparent affinity for lamps).
While this was the first major horror outing for both Patrick Baynham (The Bearded Man) and Dana Mahmood (Archibald), Rhiannon Roberts has worked as a stunt performer in everything from Yellowjackets to HBO’s The Last of Us adaptation – which is probably why The Red-Headed Woman is the most active out of Clark’s impromptu “family.” That being said, the Archibald Leland Sutter Still Life is my personal favorite of the bunch simply because his anachronistic outfit suggests that the Backrooms phenomenon might be a lot older than the Async Foundation. I also love how hard he tries to be helpful with that little light of his!
That might be it for the Still Life entities, but I think horror fans will also be pleased to hear that the film’s Found Footage prologue stars none other than Resident Evil: Welcome to Raccoon City star Avan Jogia as Naren Warne – and American Mary herself Katharine Isabelle also shows up in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameo at Mary’s house party towards the middle of the story (though I have a feeling that she originally had a bigger part that was likely cut for time).
At the end of the day, Parsons’ Backrooms may have been an auteur-driven project motivated by the young director’s unique take on the classic creepypasta, but film has always been a collective artform, so it’s fun to see just how many talented performers it takes to bring this kind of supernatural nightmare to life in a way that connects with so many people.
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