DVD Review: OUTCAST 18 – 98mins – 2010
Written by: Colm McCarthy and Tom K. McCarthy
Directed by: Colm McCarthy
Starring: James Nesbitt, Kate Dickie, Niall Bruton, Hanna Stanbridge, Ciaran McMenanim, James Cosmo, Karen Gillan, Christine Tremarco
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If the cast of Shameless ever delved into the occult, Outcast would be the outcome. A pair of Irish travellers – introverted teen Fergal (Bruton) and his protective mother Mary (Dickie) – find temporary lodging in a deprived council estate in Edinburgh . They are in hiding from the inexorable Cathal (Nesbitt), a man who uses black magic to hunt his quarry. Meanwhile, the lowlife deadbeats wasting away in the concrete jungle are picked off by a mysterious beast with a taste for flesh…
Dark, visceral and lacking any cinematic gloss, Outcast adds a smattering of gritty social realism to its fantastical predator and prey plot. The Edinburgh estate is in a state of disrepute; a grey wasteland of smashed windows, graffiti-ed walls and uncouth chavs - among them Karen "Amy Pond" Gillan in a pre-Who supporting role - who doss about on the swings while their parents drink themselves into an early grave. It’s an unpleasant sight, but it at least makes a change from seeing all the prettiest young starlets getting picked off in their lush New York skyscrapers.
Much to his mother’s stern disapproval, emotionless Fergal starts an awkward romance with Petronella (Stanbridge), an independent girl from the estate with a sharp head on her shoulders. The pair have nothing in common and they seem to spend half their time together in awkward silence, but I can imagine these kind of desperate, chemistry-devoid unions take place all the time when there’s nothing better to do than hang at the park smoking. Despite his star quality, Cold Feet’s Nesbitt delivers an unglamorous turn as the gruff and unlikeable Cathal, a mystically tattooed brute who snaps crows’ necks to work his wicca magic and locate Mary for a predictable climatic showdown which ties the film’s three key threads together: who is the monster, why is Cathal so intent on dispatching a woman long gone from his life, and what was the purpose of Mary keeping Fergal and Petronella apart?
The CGI beastie is often obscured in shadow (for budgetary reasons I’m sure), but when it does eventually grace the film in all its hideous supernatural glory, it looks like a long snouted, green-skinned werewolf. It’s too lanky to be particularly scary, but it does its job without being laughed off the screen. Elsewhere, Outcast goes all out to achieve a top shelf rating, splattering the pavement in as much gore as possible and even subjecting the game Dickie and Bruton to gratuitous nude shots. Blimey - these people really are Shameless!In a CR@B Shell: Rough around the edges and not at all pretty, but Outcast is a gritty and atmospheric low budget effort which deserves more than the one star mauling genre fanboys SFX subjected it to.
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My favourite episodes are those which let a linear story unfold and there is no mystery to be spoilt: Episode #12, “Two Against The Rock”, which sees a flying Alcatraz fall foul to a prisoner takeover, is an edgy, enjoyable affair, while “ Hate Street ” (#16) is an astonishingly brutal look at racially aggravated crime. Special mention must also be made to “Smelter Skelter” (#18), which opened with a viciously tense bank robbery which put Liz Brogan and her mother (Paul) in peril, then documented their coming to terms with the shock, and the two-part epic “The Fire Within” (#20, #21), which covered a wealth of ground in a story remarkably diverse to any other told in the series.
Unfortunately, fatigue did begin to set in, somewhere around Saw IV or V, not aided by the premature decision to kill off the iconic trap-setter in III but keep his legacy alive through surrogate lunatics – such as his apprentice, Detective Hoffman (Costas Mandylor) – thus relying upon a deluge of newly recorded “flashbacks” to keep Bell in the picture. You could say they were squeezing blood from a stone-Saw *boom tish*.
As her best friend (Alyson Michalka), fanatical chastity groups and teachers turn against her, Olive soon realises that her social experiment of not having sex but saying you are has its drawbacks – namely, she’s not actually getting any sex! And so Olive takes to her web cam (how very twenty first century!) to confess her sins and win back the respect she has spurned, and the affection of the one guy she really does want to wear an “A” for, Todd (Penn Badgley).
Well, as grounded as a film about murder, witch doctors and monk-inventors-turned-spies in 16th century Hungary can be… The 138 minute epic is certainly a rich and exotic affair, stirring a plethora of ideas, characters and genres into one sumptuous piece of romanticised art. Tonally, the film feels like a blend of French werewolf thriller Brotherhood of the Wolf and an episode of The Tudors: there’s dark and potentially supernatural hokum, political intrigue, war, bloodshed, royal deceit, rape and romantic whimsy – and the aforementioned Catholic duo even bring an (ill-advised) splash of Van Helsing into the mix with their comedic endeavours!
Based upon details made public during the court case and Parker’s diary entries, Heavenly Creatures proves to be disturbing viewing: Melanie Lynskey excels as the shy Parker, while Kate Winslet radiates confidence to the point of purposeful irritation as the prim yet outspoken Hulme. It’s the kind of shocking story which lends credence to the maxim “truth is stranger than fiction”, as the two best friend’s form a quick-but-concrete bond which sees them go off into their own fantasy worlds where they take on the characteristics of characters from medieval love stories they create.
Some characters are portrayed by puppets, held and performed by visible-but-ignored actors, who interact with other players performing their roles in the more traditional sense. It does take some getting used to, especially as the lead human Princeton (Adam Pettigrew) is a puppet, while other humans are not. Trekkie Monster (Chris Thatcher), who stays in his room downloading porn all day, is a vulgar riff on Sesame Street’s unruly Cookie Monster, while best friends Rod (Pettigrew again) and Nicky (Thatcher again) vocalise the latent homoeroticism forever associated with Burt and Ernie.
So the moral at the end of the exercise is admirable enough, if as obvious as Jack Black discovering beauty isn’t only skin deep, but Hall Pass’s honour is muddied by the wives actively enjoying the freedom their relaxed vows offers them as they party with Fischer’s dad’s baseball team. In fact, Applegate’s Grace comes out of the experience by far the least favourably. I must be a traditionalist to feel decidely uneasy about the “free love” subject matter, but it does come across as somewhat desperate and indecent, especially considering Rick has two young children!
It’s never easy to do a live show which road tests new material, as the audience find it harder to lose themselves in music they have never heard before, but the Water Rats throng did a great job when presented with a plethora of previews from forthcoming third album Only Human (to be released in May). As it was, the fan-favourites were inserted into the setlist as “treats” amidst the exclusive new stuff, with “Let the People Know”, “Achilles Heel” and – naturally – “Dancing In The Moonlight” from debut album Onka’s Big Moka getting the most vociferous reactions.
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Why? Because everything happens for a reason in the grand scheme of things, provided the omnipotent “Chairman” (an unseen, God-like master) wants it to. Otherwise his bureaucratic “angels” are dispatched to make subtle but influential changes which will affect your life for the good of the scheme without you ever knowing. The predicament is, after not missing his bus and turning up to work ten minutes earlier than he should have – catching the bureaucrats in action – David now knows, and he’s a determined individual who won’t give up on the love of his life without a chase.
The reason for the people-hoovering invasion is hinted at but never spelled out, while the military retaliation against the light-emitting, human enticing foes is only seen from afar, as a group of survivors – including Turk from Scrubs, aka Donald Faison, and Six Feet Under’s Eric Balfour – hide, plan, escape then retreat from the mysterious threat.
From a technical standpoint it is hard to knock the film – it doesn't look as cheap as you might expect, the downcast colour palette compliments the tone ideally, and the actors do a disturbingly authentic job – but proficient editing is hardly what this film is going to be remembered for. While Meir Zarchi's prototype was all the more hard-hitting for its stark originality, this 2010 remake arrives in a morally-jaded society where it must battle for rental store shelf space alongside a raft of copycat offenders: Deliverance, The Hills Have Eyes, Taken, The Last House on the Left are but four examples, and two of those have likewise had 21st century reboots!
