10/22/14 (Part Two): The Second Time’s Not the Charm

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, betrayal, Black Sun, Catherine Steadman, cinema, Clive Russell, co-writers, Daniel Caltagirone, David Gant, Dog Soldiers, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Wadham, Michael Byrne, Movies, Nazi hunters, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Nick Nevern, Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun, Philip Rosch, Rae Brunton, Richard Coyle, sequel, set in Eastern Europe, Steve Barker, writer-director, zombies

Despite really enjoying Steve Barker’s “Nazi zombies vs mercenaries” chiller, Outpost (2007), I was more than a little wary when I heard that he would be releasing a sequel some five years later (late?). While the original Outpost featured an open ending, I assumed this was just a de rigueur “downer” finale and wouldn’t necessarily translate to an actual sequel: silly me. As it turns out, Black Sun (2012) would be but the first sequel released: shortly afterword, a third film, Rise of the Spetsnaz (2013) would be announced. Suddenly, Barker’s modest little zombie/war hybrid went from a stand-alone film to a veritable franchise. Too much of a good thing? Alas, as far as Black Sun is concerned, the answer seems to be a resounding “yes”: what seemed fresh and genuinely spooky the first time around has been beaten into a pulpy mess that vaguely resembles a Syfy-channel take on Outpost. In other words, pretty much the last thing anyone was hoping to find.

Beginning pretty much right after the proceedings from the first film, Black Sun wastes no time in tossing us headfirst into the increasingly complex storyline. We learn that Hunt (Julian Wadham), the unfortunate bureaucrat from the first film, was actually working for a group of modern-day Nazis who seek to use the mysterious machine to raise an army of the living dead in order to take over the world: the 4th Reich, if you will. Chief among the Nazis is the elderly Klausener (David Gant), one of the engineers who originally built the machine and a close confident of the undead commandant from the original film.

Our protagonist this time around is Lena (Catherine Steadman), a Nazi hunter who has taken up the mantle from her father and has been tracking Klausener and his supporters for years. Tracking them to the same part of Eastern Europe where the original Outpost took place, Lena runs into an ex-boyfriend, Wallace (Richard Coyle), who appears to be some sort of shadowy mercenary-type. The pair quickly falls in with another paramilitary group, this time led by Macavoy (Daniel Caltagirone), and soon find themselves back at that old familiar bunker. After spending the first 50 minutes of the film running around the countryside, Black Sun finally decides to get us to the good stuff and heads into the claustrophobic bunker for another all-out fight between good and evil. One of the members of the group isn’t quite who he claims to be, however, and a stunning act of betrayal may doom them all to the same fate as the poor mercs from the original film.

For the most part, nearly everything about Black Sun is a lesser version of its predecessor: the effects aren’t as good, the acting is more over-the-top (in particular, Wadham’s return performance as Hunt is a real vein-popper and extremely tedious) and the whole thing devolves into the kind of generic action sequences that are used to pad the run-time of various direct-to-TV “epics.” The storyline becomes needlessly complicated, shooting for something resembling the epic world-building of Hellboy (2004) but on a poverty-row budget.

While Steadman isn’t terrible as Lena, I really wish I could say the same thing about poor Richard Coyle. Despite being a huge fan of his work in the British sitcom Coupling, as well as his utterly delightful performance in Grabbers (2012), I found Coyle’s performance in Black Sun to be off-putting, irritating and tonally inconsistent. I wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, trust me (he’s easily one of my favorite character actors), but there’s nothing about his take on Wallace that notable for any of the right reasons. Steadman and Coyle have zero chemistry, which makes their backstory about being “passionate lovers” rather suspect: if anything, Wallace always seems like a suspicious asshole, rendering the “surprise” developments in his character pretty moot. Unlike the first film, where Ray Stevenson provided a ridiculously charismatic lead, neither Steadman nor Coyle have what it takes to rivet the audience’s attention.

The strangest thing about Black Sun’s failure is that the core creative team, director Barker and writer Rae Brunton, are back but the script is so much worse than the first film. Perhaps this can be chalked up to Barker sharing a co-writing credit with Brunton…perhaps the pair just realized they really didn’t have anything left to say on the subject. For whatever reason, however, Black Sun comes across as flat, needlessly silly and way too proud of mediocre action sequences for its own good: it’s like a formerly straight-A student bragging about scoring all Cs…it just doesn’t make sense.

Ultimately, despite wanting Black Sun to succeed, my earlier suspicions were right on the nose: rather than existing for any good reason, Black Sun seems to be just another sequel, attempting to replicate the original films successes without having a single new thought to get across. While there are plenty of good moments (some great) and pulpy thrills to be found in Black Sun, it’s such a huge step-down from the first film that I couldn’t help but be massively disappointed. Perhaps the third installment, Rise of the Spetsnaz, will correct the issues and get the ship sailing full-steam ahead. Unfortunately, my intuition tells me that one’s probably a stinker, too.

10/22/14 (Part One): When History Just Won’t Stay Buried

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31 Days of Halloween, abandoned bunkers, Brett Fancy, British films, cinema, Dead Snow, directorial debut, Dog Soldiers, Enoch Frost, ensemble cast, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, horror, horror films, horror franchises, Julian Rivett, Julian Wadham, Michael Smiley, Movies, Nazi zombies, Nazis, Neil Marshall, Oasis of the Zombies, Outpost, Paul Blair, Rae Brunton, Ray Stevenson, Richard Brake, set in Eastern Europe, soldiers, Steve Barker, UK films, zombies

Despite having seen so few good ones, I’ve always been a fan of Nazi zombie flicks. Chalk it up to seeing “classics” like Shock Waves (1977) and Oasis of the Zombies (1981) when I was I kid but I’ve always had a soft spot for shockers that feature the undead SS, especially when said films tend to take a more serious, dark approach. While Oasis, Shock Waves and Zombie Lake (1981) are all pretty silly entries in this particular subgenre, there have also been real gems like The Bunker (2001), Blood Creek (2009), the hilarious Dead Snow (2009) and The Keep (1983) (although The Keep is a bit of a cheat since it features Nazis and a demon but no Nazi zombies). Chief among these “good” Nazi zombie films, however, would have to be Steve Barker’s creepy, atmospheric feature-debut, Outpost (2007). Making good use of a strong ensemble cast and some genuinely eerie locations, Outpost is a rock-solid horror film that resembles Neil Marshall’s excellent Dog Soldiers (2002) yet manages to have an identity all its own.

Kicking off in present-day Eastern Europe, a fussy bureaucrat by the name of Hunt (Julian Wadham) hires a team of mercenaries to take him into a dangerous no-man’s land so that he can access a long-abandoned World War II-era bunker. Hunt tells the team that he’s after mineral deposits but merc leader DC (Rome’s Ray Stevenson) has his doubts, especially when his team appears to get fired on by unseen assailants. Returning fire with a zeal that should’ve laid a whole city flat, the mercenaries come to find that not only aren’t there any bodies in the nearby woods, there aren’t even any shell casings or signs that anything living was ever in the area.

Things get even eerier once the team descends into the bunker and realizes that nothing is quite as it seems. For one thing, the bunker appears to be an old Nazi fortification, as evidenced by the enormous swastika found in one of the chambers. There’s also an inexplicable room full of dead bodies, bodies which appear to belong to the poor, unfortunate locals in the area. Most importantly, however, the group also comes across a large, mysterious machine that appears to be part combustion engine, part science experiment. This, of course, is the reason that Hunt needed to come to the bunker: in the end, it always come around to some button-pusher’s hidden agenda, doesn’t it?

All hell breaks loose when Hunt powers on the machine and its seems to have the effect of raising the dead, unleashing an army of zombified Nazi soldiers upon the unfortunate mercs and their employer. Unlike the gut-munching zombies of Romero’s classic Night of the Living Dead (1968), these Nazis are the weapon-utilizing variety found in Lenzi’s Nightmare City (1980): in no time, the soldiers are locked in a desperate life-or-death struggle against creatures that shrugged off the mortal coil some time in the past but just can’t seem to stay dead. One zombie in particular, a mute, stone-faced commandant, appears to take charge of the undead legion, leading his troops in blood-thristy pursuit against the living. As DC’s men are picked off, one by one, he must uncover the secret behind the machine and figure out Hunt’s real reason for being there: otherwise, he’s going to be just another body for the war machine to roll over.

Similar to Marshall’s Dog Soldiers, Outpost ends up being an excellent, fast-paced and atmospheric war-horror hybrid that features some fantastic effects work (the makeup, in particular, is great), evocative cinematography and eerie sound design. The bunker location is a truly awesome setting and utilized to great effect by Barker and director of photography Gavin Struthers, in only his second full-length film. The filmmakers wring endless mileage out of the mercs slipping from one dark tunnel to the next, often lit by nothing more than the gentle glow of a light stick: to be honest, it never really gets old, testament to the importance of a good location.

In another nod to Marshall’s debut, the ensemble cast in Outpost is particularly strong, ably anchored by Stevenson’s authoritative performance as DC (in an odd coincidence, Stevenson’s partner-in-Rome, Kevin McKidd, was also in Dog Soldiers). The whole cast is solid, however, featuring reliable character actors like Michael Smiley, Richard Brake and Enoch Frost: their interactions ring true, for the most part, and it’s pretty easy to believe that these guys are not only former soldiers but current comrades, despite their often bristly relationships. Actually caring about the characters is one of the prime requisites for separating “decent” horror films from “good” ones and Outpost has this handily locked down.

While the “zombies using weapons” aspect was initially a little off-putting (I prefer my zombies to be old-school, meaning they shuffle, stumble and chew with their mouths open), it actually fits in perfectly with the film’s “soldier” theme and leads to some truly disturbing scenes, such as the one where the Nazis hammer bullets into one of the mercs. These Nazi are soldiers, first, and zombies second, which is actually kind of refreshing. Despite being more military than monstrous, the Nazis still manage to cut quite the terrifying figures: the scene where they slowly emerge from the woods, surrounded by fog and backlit by a blinding white light, is instantly reminiscent of both Carpenter’s classic The Fog (1980) and Bava’s stylish Demons (1985) and is a real corker.

Ultimately, Outpost succeeds so well because it has modest ambitions and executes them with a sturdy, self-assured hand. While the “mysterious machine” aspect of the film tends to get a little overly complicated (I’m still not quite sure what the logistics of the Nazi plan was supposed to be, although it was obviously nefarious), there’s no shortage of genuine chills and shocks to be found, making sure that the film stays firmly planted in “horror” territory. The ending even leaves the door wide open for a sequel, a promise which Barker would make good on a few years later with Outpost: Black Sun (2012), followed by a further entry, Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz in 2013, albeit one not directed by Barker.

And there you have it: a great setting, strong cast, smart script and creative kill scenes combine to make one helluva horror movie. While the early days of the Nazi zombie film might have been overly silly, it looks like Barker is helping to give them a little legitimacy. Here’s to hoping that the Outpost franchise continues to deliver quality chills into the distant future: for this guy, at least, you can never have too many Nazi zombies wandering around.