War Movies Review:
Link:
http://warmovieblog.com/archives/191-Outpost-2007.htmlIn the UK-produced Outpost, we get to follow a mysterious band of mercenaries hired by an even more mysterious man into the forests of Eastern Europe. The mission? Well, he’s not telling.
The group makes its way into the forest, and comes across a long overgrown bunker of some sort. They venture inside, and quickly realize that they’re not on any ordinary mission.
In fact, they’ve stumbled into one of the greatest, and most terrible scientific experiments the Nazis mustered up during World War II. In this bunker, the Germans dabbled with the very fabric of space and time, to create the fabled UberSoldat. What they created instead was a legion of undead, who still haunt the outpost to this day.
Once you’ve suspended your disbelief (trust me, you’ll need to do this) you discover that the mercenaries’ employer knows exactly what he’s after: The Nazi’s “unified field” machine, somehow still able to be fired up after sixty-odd years underground.
I figured I’d rent Outpost from Netflix on a lark, that it’d be good for a laugh or two. And it was. But I was actually surprised at how good this picture was. While it may be light on the FX side, that actually works to its benefit, relying instead on more traditional horror movie suspense than your typical slash and spill gore. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still a lot of that to go around, but it’s not the primary focus.
There are plenty of twists to the plot that will actually surprise you, and I really don’t want to spoil them here. You’ll have to be surprised on your own. The German film they find is just classic, and is actually quite a believable construction. And the ending, the ending was exactly what I had hoped it would be, instead of your typical American “somebody from the ‘good guys’ has to win” outcome.
The mercenaries are, unfortunately, your stereotypical merc types. The redneck, the coward, the nervous, the stoic, their fearless leader…. But Saving Private Ryan this ain’t, so I will let it slide. I would have liked to see a bit more exploration of the twisted SS undead, and their mysterious Commandant, though.
If you’re after a fun and scary melding of the horror and war movie genres, then Outpost is right up your alley. I’m giving this an overall six, just because it wasn’t the dreck I was expecting. I can’t help but think somebody dropped the ball and could have made this plot into one hell of a first-person-shooter game, too.
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