Tuesday, September 30, 2008

You can’t kill what’s already dead (it's a cliche)

That’s according to the tagline of the independent Brit-horror “Outpost”, directed by Steve Barker and starring the charismatic Ray Stevenson (from “Rome”). Stevenson, disappointingly sans charisma in this instance, headlines as the leader of a group of mercenaries that accompanies a ‘company representative’ on a reconnaissance mission. What this guy's looking for he won’t say (it's not hard to guess though) and it doesn’t take long for the viewer to suspect that they Eastern European bunker they end up exploring is a place where things go bump, bash and die in the night.

After 45 minutes of very little happening, the enemy is revealed; after 90 minutes, the movie’s over and you’re not sure what the point was to it all: mercenaries in and above bunker, enemy force identified, mercenaries picked off one by one (in a typical formulaic, unimaginative manner). That, as they say, is that. At least the film has downer of an ending though the aftermath is unnecessary.

“Outpost” is a cheerless horror with very little tension, and is even plain illogical at times (even for an Eastern European military undead horror). A bunker with darkened corridors is an excellent location for generating apprehension (the vastly superior “Session 9”, set in an abandoned asylum, comes to mind) but Barker doesn’t pull it off. This is a case of a workable horror concept in search of a screenplay, and is really not worth the effort. You can't shake the "seen it all before" feeling while you struggle with the "wish I were watching something else" feeling.

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