Take some invulnerable transporting Nazi
zombies, toss in a squad super hardcore soldiers who are in
way over their heads, put them all in an enclosed bunker with
no way out and then turn out the lights. That, my
friends, was director Steve Barker's 'Outpost', a horror movie
that in our opinion had a list of plusses that far outweighed
its negatives. Since we seem to be in the midst of some
kind of Nazi horror renaissance, with Nazi's in space, Nazi's
in the center of the earth, and Nazi's with time machines, The
Outpost crew didn't want to be left out as we have more Nazi
Zombies to deal with, though I think they've lost the ability
to teleport. The result is 'Outpost: Black Sun', a
bigger, bloodier movie than the one it follows, but not
necessarily a better one.
Lena (Catherine Steadman) is the cutest, most adorable little
Nazi Hunter you would ever want to see. Just want to
pinch her cheek. The latest nursing home ridden, liver
spotted old dude she met wanted to pinch her cheek too, until
she started to torture him. There can't be too many of
these old Nazi's left can there? Anyway, this old Nazi,
before he checked out, gleefully boasted about the return of
the Thousand Year Reich, which Lena palmed off as Nazi babble,
but we know he was talking about regenerated Nazi
zombies.
Now Lena has to make a quick trip to Sarajevo, or wherever the
heck the last movie took place, but not to find Nazi zombies
but to scratch the last old Nazi off of her list, a dude named
Klausner (David Gant). Here she stumbles into an old
colleague, though I'm not completely sure what their
relationship is to be honest with you, in Wallace (Richard
Coyle) who is some kind of engineer searching for the Nazi
zombie machine so he can destroy it. You see at this
point all of the important people in the
world are aware of the Nazi zombie menace,
and whatever range of limitations the original zombie machine
used to have, that's been fixed as Nazi zombies are spreading
out further and further. And these Nazi's aren't down
with the Geneva Convention doctrines since taking prisoners in
their little war of incursion is not an option.
Further and further into Nazi territory Lena and Wallace
descend, witnessing firsthand the absolute brutality of the
Nazi zombie onslaught, and eventually they run into some
hardcore mercenaries who are also looking for the bunker to
take out the zombie machine. So concerned is the world
about these Nazi's, that plan B to get rid of these Nazi's is
the nuclear annihilation of a still populated
countryside. Whatever y'all gotta do…
Just remember, as is often the case in these situations,
everything isn't always what it seems. I mean the Zombie
Nazi is what it seems… but everything else is a little shaky.
Standing on its own, this meaning not comparing 'Black Sun' to
the first movie, this version is a pretty okay mediocre horror
thriller. It suffers some in the details of it all,
since certain relationships towards certain characters where
never clear to me and there was a lot going on in that bunker
dungeon that I was completely in
the dark about, but the basics were nailed down pretty
solid. These basics consisting of Nazi zombies with the
ability to sprint like Carl Lewis, and beating people in the
head with blunt force objects until they stopped moving.
And there's no shortage of Nazi Zombie carnage so if you're
searching for Nazi zombie mayhem, you have arrived at your
destination.
Everything in support of the Nazi Zombie mayhem is where
'Black Sun' doesn't always deliver. Catherine Steadman
is a cute kid and she's a talented actress, she just didn't
come off as tough enough to be the hardcore Nazi hunter that
she's portraying here, much less the Nazi Zombie killer she's
going to have to become if we're going to survive this
mess. The remainder of the performances were fairly
non-descript, playing service to the main course of Zombie
Nazi chaos, which does work well here. Also the
narrative, which did have a good launching point, ended up
being far too sketchy to get too deeply involved in.
But where 'Black Sun' really falls short, and this is where we
bring back the original film, is in the oppressive atmosphere
that was in that first film. Since this was a different,
more wide open kind of film, the claustrophobic fear and
consistent tension couldn't realistically be expected as much,
but it wasn't satisfactorily replaced with anything in
particular. There was more action and more violence and
more zombies, and we appreciated that, but I would've
preferred more fear and more tension.
All that being said, 'Outpost: Black Sun' isn't a bad horror
thriller and it does have its moments to be certain, it's just
a disappointment when compared to the first film.
Nonetheless, we are still excited to see the follow-ups to
this one, because you really can't beat Nazi zombies, no
matter how disappointed we may have been.
