You know, I thought I was long through that phase of my life. You know the phase, that melancholy goth (or as today’s kids say ‘emo’) mentality of being oh-so sad about the way things are, they way they always have been and the way they always will be.

It makes you so sad that it hurts and you wear black on the outside since that’s how you feel inside. I reveled in my own pain a lot as a kid, and while I still listen to my Cure and Depeche Mode albums all the time, I thought that I was really past that page of reveling in my own misery. Apparently this isn’t true. No, it’s not true at all.

It’s evident that sometimes my suicidal tendencies get the best of me, as I throw my hand up in the air to catch some of the most fucking dumb DVDs imaginable. I recently glanced back and my review page on this very site and honestly saw a couple of titles there that I didn’t remember watching or writing about and clicked the link expecting an entertaining but misplaced John Felix review. Perhaps I still have this childish belief that I will find the lowest that I can go and suddenly bloom in a burst of inspiration and experience Siddhartha’s nirvana and become a better person.

Or maybe I’m just taking too many Somas.

Whatever the case, today we’re going to talk about Outpost, a title that if not acquired by Sony on the cheap would almost have assuredly been picked up by Dimension Extreme or Lionsgate if for no other reason than the nondescript horror potential that the title alone conveys. Want to hear what the film is about? No? Well, Christ, pal… I don’t know what to tell you. I kind of have to get into this a little bit because it’s part of the job. Don’t worry though; I’m sure I’ll find another tangent to go off on in a few minutes. Try to work with me for a bit.

As we all know Hitler liked doing some pretty fucked up things. When he wasn’t out killing Jews, taking over most of Europe, promoting a singular race to which he himself did not belong or being obsessed with Disney characters, he was usually experimenting with the occult. Now while Hitler’s own personal occult experiences are up for debate, the thought of one of mankind’s most insane yet brilliant minds fucking around with Cthulhu and Satan and other friends of man have potential for great fiction. Outpost tries to capitalize on this and well… it tries. It tries in that same way that your IT department tries to show up to work on time and tries to fix Outlook but tells you that you need to email your request first tries to do his job.

Anyway, its 2007 (I guess) and word gets out to some unseen “investors” that in this bunker out in god-knows-where has been undisturbed for 60+ years and there is supposedly all sorts of occult Nazi crazyshit housed up in there, so one engineer is sent along with a bunch of mercenaries to go in there and retrieve it and then go home and party. Well, this is a horror film, so going home and partying isn’t going to be an option for this ethnically diverse cast of wannabe badasses.

Upon entering the titular outpost, the group triggers a sort of security defense mechanism which forces soldiers who willingly sacrificed their lives for the Third Reich to be resurrected and continue to follow their Furher’s orders which are, naturally, kill the people who enter. So, after a series of pretty brutal murders, it’s up to a surviving trio to try and survive against the undead Nazi soldiers who can’t be stopped by a simple bullet to the brain.

Anyone who knows me would have read this premise and probably thought of me immediately. After all, this is the sort of film that I typically enjoy. Occultism, Nazis, zombies, bunch of guns and men being men by trying to solve problems with violence the way nature intended us to do so. Sadly, Outpost pretty much fucks all of this up in one way or another and makes the final project barely watchable. First, the film is very dark making most of the make-up effects almost impossible to see. It might have been used to create a mood, but if you’re going to advertise yourself as a Nazi zombie movie, then I want to see some animated Aryan corpses with iron crosses and swastikas and maggots falling off of them and outfits and black shit coming from their mouths. If you’re going to do this, do it right and do Romero/Fulci proud. Second, throw some women in this. Granted, not every movie needs to have a woman I want to bang so hard she’ll call me Mike Mangini, but there isn’t a single relatable character at all in Outpost, since we learn little-to-nothing about these mercenaries’ pasts.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I haven’t referred to a single character by name. The main reason? I don’t remember any of them. None really stood out other than the lead mercenary whom the IMDB calls DC (Ray Stevenson, whom you’ll remember from Rome if you have taste in good television) and the Engineer who hired the mercenaries (I believe is Julian Wadham… though I could be wrong). You can tell that these two left the strongest impression, mainly because they had the most screentime, and moreso they had some actual dialogue instead of posturing. Speaking as a credit to the otherwise flavorless as yesterday’s chewing gum supporting cast, Richard Brake is also in this mess, playing the same character he played in Doom and Hannibal Rising – some fucking guy who gets what’s coming to him and whips his long blonde hair around.

I’ve gone on for too long here. Outpost simply doesn’t live up to its easily exploited premise. The acting sucks, the direction is stale and they forgot to hire a lighting guy. I really want to conclude this with some inspirational and hopeful vibe that someday somebody out there will make a really awesome Nazi zombie movie (and no, Zombie Lake doesn’t count). Maybe though, just maybe I owe Outpost a bit of gratitude, because I usually watch movies like this to feel entertained and childlike, but no film more than Outpost has ever slapped me across the face and insulted me, essentially telling me to grow the fuck up and stop watching shit like this.

Presentation
I would say that the transfer is good, but that’s faint praise when the movie is so black that at times it resembled an image of Aunt Jemima in a space with not a star for a billion light years. Audio wasn’t too bad though. The 5.1 mix had some pretty cool moments and sound effects. I never once had trouble distinguishing dialogue either, but English and French subs are available.

Extras
Deleted Scenes – (10:26)
This movie is only 90 minutes long and yet at times feels like its really dragging. There are seven scenes that were deleted, including a different opening. Some of them make a halfhearted attempt to add some characterization to the cast, but really it’s too little to be relevant. Their removal is not to be mourned. They are all non-anamorphic too.

Previews –
An unsurprising inclusion, every trailer for every film that Sony can possibly promote. “Blu-ray Disc is High Definition!” (and also a format that Outpost isn’t available on), Zombie Strippers (which I definitely am not ready to outgrow), Bats: Human Harvest, Boogeyman 2, Revolver, Southland Tales, April Fool’s Day (a in-name-only remake with an attractive cast), Gabriel, The Tattooist, Loch Ness Terror, 30 Days of Night, Damages – Season 1, I Know who Killed Me, Resident Evil: Degeneration (I’m so there) and Fearnet.com.

I’m glad that this release didn’t have anything else on it. The film simply doesn’t warrant more attention.

The Bottom Line
A film of this genre and with these themes has to try extra hard and totally go out of its way to bore me. Somehow, Outpost managed this. I can’t even get myself worked up enough about this movie to hate it; it’s just ridiculously boring and disappointing. If I were you, I wouldn’t waste my time.