Paula Hammond - Features EditorBritish zombie flick Outpost II gets its UK premiere this weekend at Film4’s annual FrightFest
British
zombie flick Outpost II gets its UK premiere this weekend at Film4’s annual
FrightFest –
a show case of premiers, personal appearances and previews, designed with gore
hounds firmly in its sights. However those who were expecting Outpost II to be
simply Outpost I, on a bigger budget, will perhaps have been pleasantly
surprised.
Outpost I was a tightly made, taut, little
horror, based on a simple premise: that, during the closing years of the Second
World War, a group of renegade Nazi scientists devised a machine to create an
unstoppable, undead army. Cue lots of creeping around in corridors and
senseless slaughter.
The second film, in what’s now evolved into a
trilogy, has been four years in the making and reunites director and writer
team Steve Barker and Rae Brunton.
But if Outpost I was the movie equivalent of Resident Evil, then Outpost II: Black Sun is definitely Tomb Raider.
While on the trail of notorious German war
criminal, Klausener, Nazi hunter Lena (played by Catherine Steadman) stumbles across a reanimated army, cutting a
bloody swathe through anyone who stands in their way. Aided by rogue scientist
Wallace (Richard Coyle) and a group
of Special Forces grunts, it’s up to Lena to prevent the unthinkable – the rise
of the Fourth Reich.
It’s pure Action
Comics stuff and the characters, quite fittingly, never really develop
beyond cartoon stereotypes. Wallace is the bitter loner, Lena the gutsy
heroine. The grunts are off the peg caricatures too but that all adds to the
fun. Because if Outpost II is anything, it’s fun. Blood soaked, gun totin’,
Nazi whollopin’ fun. The wonderfully grotesque Nazi hag, who the heroes
discover doing ‘unspeakable’ things in the bunker, has surely stepped straight
out of the pages of a 1970s comic book.
Outpost II looks and feels bigger and glossier
than the first film and it has abandoned some of the gore in favour of plot and
pacing. But its creators have been sensible enough not to stray too far from
the original. And with a denouement which seems to lead neatly into the third
instalment (Outpost: Rise Of The
Spetsnaz), due for release next year, there’s clearly plenty of life left
in these geriatric grave dodgers yet. Which is great news because let’s face
it; shooting Nazis is never going to get
old.
