Outpost

Although the idea of this movie is not entirely new (similar plot lines can be found in older movies like "Shockwave" from 1976 and computer games like the "Castle Wolfenstein" series) it is still rather original and appealing: Nazi scientists attempt to create indestructible "super soldiers" in order to achieve world domination.

The acting is very good.

The movie's special effects are also well realised and a certain amount of suspense is undeniable, especially at the beginning of the movie.

However, there were some inconsistencies that ruined the movie for me.

Firstly, the explanation given in the movie about why the paranormal phenomenons happen is incomprehensible. I would have preferred no explanation at all than a badly researched pseudo-scientific one involving some obscure Einsteinian theory. It makes it impossible to understand what the scientist is actually after the whole time.

Secondly the director seems to bend and adapt the "powers" of the undead at will, making them devoid of any credibility. Sometimes they materialise in sealed rooms and attack with great speed and deadly accuracy but in the next scene they stumble around like brainless zombies and can't even open doors. This fails to create the feeling of the main characters actually being stalked and hunted in a claustrophobic environment. I did not get a feeling of urgency and even felt a little bored at some point.

This movie disappointed me because I believe a chance has been missed to make something truly creepy and scary.

If you are just looking for gore and horror, however, you might still want to watch this movie. I would not actively recommend it though.

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.

Eastern Europe , present day . A regular team is hired by a retainer (Julian Wadham ) to a company that acquired some real state there . They must go a place where every couple of months it witches between government and insurgent hands . The leader is a tough mercenary (Ray Stevenson ) . He'll operate six-man fire team , the money is six thousand US per man , cash , payable only on the safe return . Equipment (Richard Brake , Michael Smiley, Frost , Blair , among others ) will run to another five , up front. Then the regular army has positions to the south and insurgent to the north UN safe area is southwest . Then they encounter a German bunker plenty of relics where happen weird events. The group meets a pale man and they reckon the locals used this location for a little bit of the ethnic cleansing and they moved on . It was like a slaughterhouse down there . Then the employer communicates : ¨ On site , item located . Take all necessary steps ¨. Later on ,they encounter a machine which could be the Holy Grial of physics , there are four faces that control matter , the key has been trying to find how those forces interact . If they can do that , then they can explain the behaviour of all the substance in the universe. Einstein coined a phrase ¨ unified field theory ¨. Many people thought he was close to finding a solution . But when he saw the atomic bomb test at Trinity , he abandoned the research and destroyed his notes . Nobody has even come close to finding a solution since . Then the Nazis were working on the same thing , a machine designed to manipulate an unified field and the chamber above it where they found the bodies was built to control the resultant energy , contain it . As the Germans were trying to win a war . But with this technology , its application and impact in the modern world would be limitless and probably priceless . After that , they watch some Nazi footage as : the Third Reich was renowned for dabbling with the occult . Fantasy blending with scientific research , the ¨Field Theory¨ would have been perfect for them . An equation that could bend space and time , potentially alter reality . They were running some kind of trials on these soldiers . Exposing them to the energy harnessed in that chamber above , they were trying to enhance the men . Theoretically , the human body could become fused , disappear , interwoven with the magnetic fields themselves . The American tried something similar in 1943 . An attempt was to render a warship the USS Eldridge , invisible , using Einstein's theories , ¨The Philadelphia Experiment ¨ . Urban myth has it they were partially successful . The Nazis were attempting something similar , maybe even more ambitious . A soldier that was invulnerable and unstoppable . An army that could travel thousand of miles and nobody would be any the wiser until it materialised at the gates of the White House .

This exciting movie displays thrills , chills , warfare action and lots of blood and gore . Well played by Ray Stevenson as tough commandant , he is doing an interesting career in strong roles as Rome and Punisher 2 . Dark cinematography by Struthers and suspenseful musical score by James Seymour . The flick is professionally written and directed by Steve Barker in his only film and he is preparing the second part . Rating : Good . Nice thrilling movie full of action and violence.

Hey, what do you know? Just about at the time that you get totally beaten down by godawful Z grade horror movie after godawful Z grade horror movie, along comes a super low budget little flick like this to show how it is done. Not much happens, the entire film is shot in greys and in a very limited and very visually unexciting locale. But there was a lot to like about this attempt.

I think much of the credit has to go to the script writer and director in this one, who make the most out of the little they have on hand. They stress atmosphere, sharply drawn characters, and then, in an almost unprecedented development in low grade horror, people who actually act in smart and logical fashion. The squad of soldiers in this one really moves and acts like a squad of soldiers. There is a reason for them to be where they are. There is a reason they are trapped. They take cover, lay claymores, worry about high ground and suppressing fire, pair off in twos to search, and in general never give you any reason to question whether they are actors rather than military men. That is INDCREDIBLY refreshing, and adds a remarkable degree of believability to the whole exercise, in much the way that the marines in Aliens (obviously a vastly superior movie) acted like actual soldiers and made you believe it. And in the same vein, all of the characters here have solid, believable dialogue and react in believable fashion when put under stress. The acting is solid, nobody is flat, there are no stupid joke characters, few cheap scares. The whole thing is just very intelligently done.

Now of course in the end, its still Grade Z horror. They have almost no budget, not much goes on, the premise is both clichéd and shaky, and most problematically the intelligence shown toward the characters is not duplicated in the highly erratic depiction of their opponents (the rules change every time they meet for no apparent reason). But it is the sophistication of the overall attempt here that lets me give this one a solid ranking. They had little to work with, but they actually made a real effort to turn out a quality product here. That deserves something, and in the future it would be nice to see these same people involved in a project with more ambition and money behind it.

Outpost was quite a surprise for me, and that means in a good way. I remember hearing about it a while ago but forgot all about it. I had the chance to see the movie recently and I sat down without any expectations at all. I figured it would be your typical B movie with horrible acting, but boy was I wrong. The first 10 minutes of the movie had me convinced that it would be a lot better than I had anticipated.

Memories surfaced of Dog Soldiers, mainly because a large portion of the Mercenaries team were of British, Scottish and Irish background. The cast mainly were from UK, which was nice to see them all acting different roles (Russians, etc, however poorly they did the accents).

One of the great things about Outpost is the setting. You really get a feel for a war torn country and the bunker itself seems rather eerie. The cast did a great acting job and to actually see some proper firefights for once was nice and realistic. The Mercenaries acted in a team, calling out when they are moving, setting, reloading and giving off information that would help the group move to cover, etc. Nice touch! The actual story was pretty good as well, but I won't ruin that here. Basically it is a mixture of horror and action with lots of suspense. The director deserves credit for being able to make a lot of things believable, as well as putting together the story into something that isn't a mess.

I gave this an 8 out of 10, because in my opinion, this is on the same level/quality as Dog Soldiers. Not a mega budget, but the actual story/acting/casting/direction all deserve credit. I would have paid to see this in the cinema, it was just that good. A movie that will probably go missed by lots, but for those who watch it then it most likely will be a surprise just like it was for me. If you watch it, don't expect too much from it and then you'll be able to enjoy it that much more as everything unfolds into "Wow, this is much better than I thought it would be".

Don't miss this, it's definitely worth it.