Fractal Films: Outpost
Try this phrase out for size: Zombie-ghost Nazis.
What, you need more?
This one’s best described as a cross between The Fog and Dog Soldiers. It owes a lot to the latter in particular, in that it’s a low budget British military horror film, which isn’t to say it’s a wholesale ripoff. Despite the similarities in execution, there are a fair few differences. The funny, likeable squaddies are replaced by dour, sociopathic mercenaries, and there’s very little humour to be found in the situation. Outpost’s atmosphere of creeping horror and despair is far bleaker, helped by the decaying scenery of the Nazi bunker. Full marks to the set dressers, actually. It really does feel like an ancient, rusting remnant of the Second World War.
Even though the characters are all deliberately nasty, you still find yourself drawn to their side as the horror escalates. It’s got an 18 rating, which isn’t really given out much these days. It wasn’t as unrelentingly gory as I thought it would be, and that works in its favour. Even so, it’s damn well foul enough when things kick off, and there’s plenty here for the bloodthirsty.
Thanks to the film’s age rating, the scarier version of the trailer for M. Night’s The Happening was attached, and it makes the previous trailer look like an absolute cock-up. While we got very little apart from Mark Wahlberg’s wooden, drama-school delivery from the previous one, the grown-up version is a lot more Shyamalan-y. There’s more of a horror movie thing going on, revealing that the danger isn’t just a mysterious disease that’s killing people (as suggested by the last ad), but rather something that’s making people kill themselves in terrible ways. Of course, by now the damage is done, and whoever thought the first ad was a good idea really should get the boot.
But back to the Nazis. All the roles are well cast (and look out for Tyres, the bicycle courier from Spaced playing a very different kind of character), fleshing out what is essentially a cut-rate, barely fit band of arseholes. If the film falters anywhere, it’s in the dodgy pseudoscience that creates the zombie-ghosts, but then again it’s meant to be a low-budget exploitation flick so it’s hardly out of place.
I know there’s an argument to be made that no-one makes good, intelligent films any more. Maybe that’s true. But there’s no doubt that in terms of genre films, we’ve never had a better set to choose from. Because while there’s a lot to like in old horror films, until recently none have really been that clever, certainly not in the script department. But now we’ve really got the hang of low-budget horror that’s genuinely well written, from the recent Spanish films through to British efforts like this one. And Outpost is one to be proud of.
Edit, 4pm ish: Fucking hell, this site is playing up today. I’ve been trying to amend this post all day, with no luck. I’m not typing everything else out again, so the short version: The last paragraph above is batshit crazy. There are loads of clever, classic horror films and suggesting otherwise makes no sense. The film’s good, but it’s not that good. I’ll leave the paragraph to stand as an object lesson in why not to write something while brain-numbingly tired.
