STEVE Barker's low budget Brit horror is a good looking if somewhat derivative splatterfest that makes a determined effort to build some atmosphere before letting rip with teeth chiselling, eye gouging, skull-squishing gore.
OUTPOST ( 18) * * *
DIRECTED BY: STEVE BARKER
STARRING: JULIAN WADHAM, RAY STEVENSON FILMED in the south of Scotland but set in an unspecified part of war torn Eastern Europe, Steve Barker's low budget Brit horror is a good
looking if somewhat derivative splatterfest that makes a determined effort to build some atmosphere before letting rip with teeth chiselling, eye gouging, skullsquishing gore.
A race of Nazi ghost soldiers is the main selling point as a band of grizzled mercenaries – led by a weary Ray Stevenson – provide protection for a businessman covertly investigating a bunker that was once home to sinister German experiments during the Second World War.
Once the bunker is disturbed it doesn't take long for some Third Reich evil to be unleashed, although Barker sensibly doesn't reveal its true nature until quite late on, letting panic set in as these hardened squaddies are picked off one by one.
It's a silly premise, of course, and well worn, too, having already formed the basis for Michael Mann's flop The Keep and been recycled twice in recent years by Brit horror flicks The Bunker and Deathwatch.
Nevertheless, Barker makes inventive use of limited means and once the horror kicks in it is reasonably satisfying.
The full article contains 240 words and appears in The Scotsman newspaper.
