Outpost (2008)

Director:

Steve Barker

Writer:

Rae Brunton (writer)

Release Date:

11 March 2008 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Horror

Tagline:

You can't kill what's already dead

Plot:

In war-torn Eastern Europe, a world-weary group of mercenaries discover a long-hidden secret in an abandoned WWII bunker.

Plot Keywords:

Stabbed In The Leg | Nazi Uniform | Occult | Blood Splatter | Stabbed In The Mouth

Cast

Ray Stevenson	...	DC
Julian Wadham	...	Hunt
Richard Brake	...	Prior
Paul Blair	...	Jordan
Brett Fancy	...	Taktarov
Enoch Frost	...	Cotter
Julian Rivett	...	Voyteche
Michael Smiley	...	McKay
Johnny Meres	...	The Breather
Xuki Robeli	...	Newsreader
Scott Peden	...	Nazi Sergeant Major
Mark Smith	...	Nazi Soldier #1
Charlie Jeffrey	...	Nazi Soldier #2
Graeme Temple	...	Nazi Soldier #3

MPAA:

Rated R for strong violence and language.

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

Argentina:16 | Singapore:M18 (cut) | Ireland:18 | Finland:K-15 | USA:R | Australia:R (2008)

Filming Locations:

Dumfries & Galloway, Scotland, UK

Company:

Black Camel Pictures

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): The bullet that is fired at the medic is examined and called "an old 7.62 round" by DC, however if the Nazis were using authentic German WW2 weapons such as the Mauser K-98 rifle, Stg44 assault rifle or the MP40 the round would have been a 7.92 round or a 9mm round.

Quotes:

Prior: See, the bright light... it ain't heaven, son. It's just a muzzle flare.

Effective Low Budget Horror

A well produced, horror flick that follows some many traditions in this field. A good "hook" script idea with a poorly thought out, daft explanation. Too many horror films-when dealing with out of this world concepts-do exactly the same. Lets have a brief 10 minute exposition of the just read out from the script by a leading character! Still, it has some creepiness and fairly good cinematography, a muted. bleached colour/contrast (ala Saving Private Ryan). The plus points are the enemy-shadows of their former selves; shadows of SS army ghosts (or ae they?). Aside from the problems with the "lets quickly make up an explanation" theory thrown in, the main problems are as follows: The mercenaries seem to made up of a spectrum of foreign soldiers-which is fine-but the accents of some are amusingly bad! "You can be sure o one ting. No-bod-dy gives a foook about oz!" says the "African" guy. The accents didn't totally kill the films "playing it straight" approach, but did bring out a wry smile!

Unlike Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers effort, this film lacked any sense of humour at all and might have been better for a "Hicks" type character from "Aliens" to have a mordant black sense of doom and humour. There seems to be one Irish soldier employed for this purpose but most of his lines fall fairly flat for the most part, although he is merely unrecognisable from the Simon Pegg/Nick Frost "Spaced" series, where he played (a v.funny) cycle courier with a mind messed by drug use! Overall, the visual design was very good despite its obvious budget constraints, such as the ghost/zombie elements-notably the Nazi approach from the back-lit tree-line. Are they underfire, or not? Well worth a watch then but I walked away feeling that it could have been so much better. I think the writer of this might have been influenced by a few films but...... Many years a go (back in 1977) I went to see cheap schlock horror movie starring Peter Cushing, about a zombie U boat crew who rise from the depths to kill the cast one by one. It was quite effective for the time-probably a bit daft and tame now-but the memory of it stayed with me. Shock waves, Almost Human and Dead Corps were the titles it ran under.