Two out of
Five stars
Running time:
90 mins
Disappointing, poorly directed horror flick that squanders its potentially exciting premise with a nonsensical script and some dodgy acting, while failing to provide any decent scares.
What's it all about?
Ray Stevenson (Rome's Titus Pullo – one of the finest TV characters of the noughties) plays DC, a tough, no-nonsense mercenary who's hired to protect mysterious businessman Hunt (Julian Wadham) on a dangerous journey into no-man's-land in a war-torn Eastern European country. DC duly assembles a crack team of multi-accented hard nuts and the team set off, eventually reaching Hunt's secret destination, an abandoned military outpost in an underground bunker.
However, while investigating the outpost, the team are horrified to discover the remains of grisly experiments, carried out by the Nazis on their own men during WWII. And as if that wasn't bad enough, they also discover a survivor, which inevitably leads to the team being picked off one by one by re-animated Nazi zombies. Or something.
The Good
The film's only saving grace is Ray Stevenson, who earns the film an extra star. With the right script he could be a huge star (he's like a Vinnie Jones who can act) but unfortunately this isn't it.
The Bad
Surely, you're thinking, no film with re-animated Nazi zombies can be all bad? Sadly, however, it can, as Steve Barker's inept direction fails to deliver anything in the way of either scares, tension or sense – for example, the Nazis are all sealed inside the bunker, so why do they attack from the outside?
Instead of attempting to clarify the confusing and badly thought-out plot, Barker eventually gives up the ghost and resorts to a series of increasingly gory set-pieces instead, several of which are genuinely nasty and not in a good way. As if that wasn't bad enough, DC's team of outrageously accented soldiers are terrible actors so you don't care at all when they get slaughtered.
Worth seeing?
Basically, Outpost is nowhere near as much fun as it sounds, thanks to a badly written script, poor direction and some dodgy acting.