Wednesday, May 21, 2008

OUTPOST - Nazi zombies, yay!

See, the bright light... it ain't heaven, son. It's just a muzzle flare.OUTPOST is a horror movie in which a bunch of mercenaries stake out an old Nazi bunker in search of a sci-fi machine that transformed men into super-human ghostly soldiers. Unsurprisingly, aforementioned superhuman ghostly soldiers get a mite pissed off and take their revenge. All this makes for what should have been a transparently stupid movie, and let's be clear, the precise mechanics of the plot are sketchy at best.

The surprise is that debutant writer and director, Rae Brunton and Steve Barker, have fashioned a movie that is admittedly short on gore but satisfyingly high on creepiness. I think this comes down to three things. All the actors play the material completely straight - and are actually convincing in their thinly sketched characterisations. Ray Stevenson (of Titus Pullo fame) is always a charismatic presence but he is ably supported by a solid cast of British character actors. All this means that we allow the movie to take us along with it, even when things get silly.

Second, the movie is under-cut with a rich seam of dead-pan dry humour. Take for example the terse exchange between the mercenaries and the shady historian (Julian Wadham). When they rubbish his plan of escape he replies, "And what did you do last time you were fighting the undead?" Richard Brake is particularly funny as American soldier and professional cynic, Prior, and helps give the movie its profundity in his bickering with another soldier who professes faith.

Third, the production design and cinematography are spot on. Basically this movie is all shot in a field and bunker - but the whole thing feels moody and oppressive - helped by desaturated colours and some awesome creepy silhouettes in bunkers.

Overall, OUTPOST is another one of those decent low-budget British horror movies. It's obeys all the rules of the Nazi zombie genre but with better acting and production quality than most.....

OUTPOST was released in the US earlier this year and is currently on release in the UK. It is already available on DVD.

4 comments:

  1. Anna started watching this but couldn't take it: she said it was "too tense". I'll need to watch it, especially as some of it was filmed in Govan.

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  2. "Overall, OUTLAW is another one of those decent low-budget British horror movies. It's obeys all the rules of the Nazi zombie genre but with better acting and production quality than most....."

    OutPOST, OutPOST!!

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  3. Sorry man - horrible mistake to make - OUTLAW was piss-poor - OUTPOST was deeply cool. My bad.

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  4. There's a whole GENRE of nazi zombie movies?? Why didn't anyone tell me? I've been missing out!

    I blame Matt.

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