Outpost (2007)

Set in war-torn Eastern Europe, a band of battle-worn mercenaries undertake a dangerous mission into a no-man's land at the behest of a mysterious businessman. When they locate and secure a disused military bunker, they also discover a terrifying secret that has laid buried for half a century--and which they'll have to fight to survive. Product Description

A pleasant surprise

Someone say something about Nazi zombies? That's kind of what you'll find here in Outpost, in which a crew of mercs (led by Ray Stevenson of HBO's Rome and soon to be seen in Punisher: War Zone) are led to a bunker where the Nazi's did experiments years before in hopes of creating unkillable soldiers. Well guess what? They succeeded, and soon enough, the crew is haunted and stalked by these unkillable Nazi monsters. It doesn't sound like anything special, but Outpost actually manages to be suspenseful and very nicely paced. It also provides a decent amount of bloody violence to boot, and there's enough creepy moments to hold your interest as well. All in all, Outpost is definitely worth a look for horror/suspense fans looking for a little something different. November 8, 2008

Great supernatural low budget horror flick about killer Nazi soldiers!.

I think I've stumbled upon yet another great hidden gem. I thought it was a very entertaining and well made low budget British horror film with an interesting premise, cool characters and an underused foe. Added with decent production values and a talented crew, the movie delivers some creepy atmosphere early on and some nice action throughout the rest of the picture. Marketed as a zombie flick, Outpost tackles the rarely-used theme of undead Nazi soldiers battling it out with modern day military men. The story basically follows Ray Stevenson's character as a hired mercenary who's enlisted by a mysterious scientist to put together a group of trained men and escort him through hostile territory somewhere in Eastern Europe. What was expected to be a quick and simple job turned out to be a fight for their lives when they find themselves at an old underground WWII Nazi bunker, and the soldiers from the past haven't given up on the war. The undead soldiers in this film are more of a supernatural force than zombies like the cheesy DVD artwork would lead us to believe. Sure they may walk slow and take a bunch of bullets, but they don't offer any other similarities. It's much better off this way since it blended in with the film's creepy atmosphere early on in the film. New director Steve Barker did a fantastic job with this film and considering the fact that he's a first time director he definitely made an impact, I would say that he's a director to watch out for in the future and I can't wait to see what he does next. Outpost was great fun and was probably the best low budget horror I've seen this year, check it out. October 29, 2008

A simple 48...

Outpost is an unpretentious military/horror film that hits its mark.

I knew nothing of the film before I watched it. At some point, I started to realize that it was more than just a mercs-gone-wild movie and something closer to Predator. I won't say more about that because I don't want to spoil it for you. Note that there is gore and some strong language, but both are in relatively small degrees. The movie relies more on atmosphere and tension than it does splattered guts.

The movie begins with two men in a pub in Eastern Europe. One is hiring the other for a simple 48-hour mission to survey a mineral deposit in an area contested by warlords. Soon, we meet the squad of mercenaries that have been pulled together for the mission and they seriously doubt it's minerals their employer is after. When they arrive at the site, they discover it is an abandoned underground bunker in the middle of nowhere. To be more precise, it's a SPOOKY abandoned underground NAZI bunker in the middle of nowhere. And when they discover what they've really been hired to find, they're certain that it will take longer than 48 hours to complete the mission; it might take a lifetime.

I really have no negative comments for the movie apart from the warnings about gore and language. It does what it sets out to do and is great for a rainy Sunday afternoon. August 24, 2008

Not a zombie movie

I bought this movie thinking it was a zombie movie. It is more of a ghost story with mercs in it. It said soldiers that couldn't be destroyed, so naturally I thought zombies and proceeded to buy it. So if you like a ghost story with soldiers here is your movie! August 17, 2008

I liked this movie a lot....

I thought this was a well-produced, well-acted, and generally well-written movie. It works on several levels and manages to comment on the world today by linking the story to the WWII era with a sci-fi plot device.

The sci-fi aspect is not that well developed (the only real flaw in the movie) but it doesn't distract too much from the overall effect and meaning of the movie. I have to admit that I wanted the script to end differently, but perhaps that was the point of the story: by the end of the film we understand that man's inhumanity to man--and the men who perpetrate the "profession of violence"--are both perpetual.

Spoilers Ahead...
The events in the film are meant to point out that the SS Nazis who are still protecting the experimental machine related to Einstein's "Unified Field Theory" (something quite different that the script makes it out to be) are not all that much different from the soldiers of fortune who were hired to help a mysterious man (the scientist) locate something of value to him. As the plot unfolds, it tells a straight-forward horror/sci-fi tale but the better-than-average script manages to comment on several notable things along the way: the military and the chain of command, the value of faith and/or a belief in God amidst truly terrifying circumstances, and the importance of money as a motivator in today's world. I felt that I was getting more than my money's worth...I got a scary story in a well-produced film that also had something to say about today's world by recalling the horrors of a previous time.

By the way, I actually felt sorry for the "trapped" ghost soldiers and the SS leader by the end of the film because they were never released by death from the violence that rules their lives (and WWII and the Nazi regime were as violent and horrible as war has ever been...the only difference today is we've just got better weapons). The ghost soldiers seemed to be doomed to protect the very thing that had created their perpetual vigilance, thereby meaning that there would be no end to their that existence. In telling the story, the script puts lots of words into the various characters' mouths about their views of our still very violent world and their places in the world as hired soldiers. The fact that the long-dead Nazis have a sort of "technology edge" over the living soldiers is, I'm sure, one of the intended ironies of the story.

Although I wasn't surprised at the ending, I just am old enough to want the script to let someone in the original group survive the ordeal. I say I'm "old enough to want" because I recall a time when there were actually protagonists in such films (not just anti-heroes or villains) that the audience was to identify with and thus want to see survive. One of my pet peeves about most sci-fi or horror films made since 9/11 (Sept. 11, 2001) is that in our post-terrorist-attack world, everyone in the story must die at the end and that means that there are no heroes in today's scripts, just anti-heroes.

Anyway, this film is more than creepy, atmospheric, logical, and scary enough to warrant a DVD rental. And if you like Nazi stuff and/or the idea of time-travel sci-fi mixed with military-mentality commentary and want to examine the script in multiple viewings (perhaps even with the captions on because some of the sound and accents are hard to decipher) you'll want to buy the movie. I rented it because, according to the DVD box, the film had zombie (undead) Nazis. What more do you need to know?? Zombies. Nazis. I'm there....

July 29, 2008

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