Outpost (2008)

Directed by: Steve Barker | 90 minutes | action, horror | Actors: Ray Stevenson, Julian Wadham, Richard Brake, Paul Blair, Brett Fancy, Enoch Frost, Julian Rivett, Michael Smiley

Nazi villains provide horror and pulp directors with sufficient starting points. The tyrannical SS man Ilsa produced three classics within the exploitation genre and even Nazi zombies were revived several times, including in the older ‘Shock Waves’ and in the Norwegian ‘Dead Snow’. The British horror film ‘Outpost’ gives the unethical approach of the so-called Naziploitation a slightly more responsible approach. But the otherwise known fact remains untouched, the Nazis were and still are the ultimate bad guys. This time a group of foul-mouthed mercenaries is the loser. The soldiers are sent to an old bunker along with a taciturn scientist on a nebulous mission and you guessed it; the bunker is not quite right. The Nazis conducted supernatural experiments there and now real Nazi ghosts still roam around. The occult practices of the Nazis in ‘Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark’ in a different guise, so to speak. Cut off from civilization and at the mercy of a haunted environment and a seemingly unbeatable enemy, the soldiers must survive.

Tension builds up slowly and exists for a long time mainly through suggestion. Some brief flashes of Nazi boots and Nazi grunts in the neck; that was it—apart from a sporadically more gruesome moment—that’s about it. And unfortunately, the well-known problem of almost every horror film applies here as well. That the invisible is really only really exciting as long as it also remains invisible. When the (not very mysterious) mystery has been unraveled and the enemy can be seen in all its glory, the spirit is gone. We don’t really get to see a lot of gore and the editing or special effects are not special enough to hold the attention. The film must then mainly rely on the – for enthusiasts – entertaining starting point and fun one-liners of the tough soldiers. “I never really trusted science”, in between the scientists’ quasi-technical posturing, has a sobering effect and shows that it doesn’t take itself too seriously after all. In itself, that wrong thing with the Sturmbahn uniforms is of course a reasonable indication of that. That it’s just been said.

Anyway, it could have been a little rougher. A little more daring and some more ‘plastic’ moments wouldn’t have hurt the film. On the other hand: it never really gets boring and moreover, with the gray colours, aggressive men and ominous music in the old bunker, there is still enough for the horror buff to be sweet for an hour and a half.