Last week’s post-event wind-down provided a massive amount of material to work with for this week’s SMSC, what with a physically exhausted body and a mind merely capable of functioning at half its normal IQ.  Inadvertently choosing an incredibly fitting theme, Chez Angele was teeming with zombie films galore as I gently coaxed myself back to real life, post-Comics Against Cancer. 

This week, my sketch-loving friends, I bring you the Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup of zombie films; a film that dares to combine the creepy awesomeness of the undead with the skin-crawling wretchedness of WWII Nazis, Steve Barker’s Outpost. 

Set in an unidentified, seedy war-torn area of Eastern Europe, Outpost tells the story of Hunt, a mysterious businessman who appears in a local bar, seeking to hire out a team of mercenaries to protect him as he ventures off to explore a recently acquired old military bunker.  With the promise of lots of cash and little risk, the cantankerous group of ex-soldiers can’t help but bite, and the group begins their journey into the unknown. 

Now, this sets us, the viewers, up for a nice, tense little tag-along ride as Hunt and his group of misfit toys begin their adventure.  We know there is much to fear where they are headed.  Why? Because we simply wouldn’t be watching it otherwise.  

For the members of the makeshift unit, however, it’s difficult to believe that, after having been assured that there is little threat in the job,  these men would slink around in a rather stealth fashion, guns drawn and ready to kill the first thing that moves.  Call me crazy, but it just seems a bit overkill for such a ‘safe’ mission.  We get it. We know there is something vastly freaky awaiting you lot – but you don’t. 

As the group arrives at their destination – a deserted WWII-era bunker – it suddenly becomes quite clear that this is not the safe little trip the soldiers were promised.  Unseen enemy fire rains upon them from the perimeter of the bunker, with one bullet resting in the left shoulder of one unlucky solder-for-hire.  As the film unfolds, we witness the mysterious advances of an unseen enemy force as the clearing around the bunker is brightly lit up at night, and the terrifying sound of ammunition is deafening. 

Hunt and his soldiers explore the secret bunker, which has seemingly laid undisturbed since the Nazis occupied it in WWII, and find, much to their horror, evidence of shocking human experimentation and other mysterious devices.  Having stumbled upon a chamber of naked, non-decomposed corpses, the soldiers are horrified to discover a survivor laying in the pile.   

A survivor!  Huzzah!  Surely this is something to be celebrated as the soldiers have seen nothing but death around them since their arrival.  Alas, our brave group of mercenaries instead seem to gang up on the unresponsive survivor, beating him and intimidating him into talking (which he does not).  So much for playing the victim. 

As the night unfolds, we begin to learn more about the secret work that took place in the bunker, including shape-shifting experimentation and reanimation, all in an effort by the SS to create the undefeatable super-soldier.  Deliciously haunted by a hint of actual history, the movie plays on the theories of Die Glocke (“the bell”), a purported top secret Nazi scientific technological device which has become something of a legend among believers in zero-point energy, perpetual motion machines, anti-gravity devices, reality shifting, reanimation, and time-space manipulation. 

This film, as far as zombie movies go (although I question the accuracy of dubbing this film’s villains as such), delivered more than one could ever hope for in a relatively unknown, almost-B horror movie.  Disregarding the strained, Saving Private Ryan-esque acting on the part of the mercenaries, this movie successfully creeped me out in unimaginable ways, leaving me tingling with anticipation over the rumored 2010 sequel, Outpost 2 (clever, eh?). 

And now, my dear readers and lovers of everything sketchy, I leave you with this week’s Sunday Morning Sketch Cinema quote of the week: 

Prior: See, the bright light… it ain’t heaven, son. It’s just a muzzle flare.

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