Brief review: "Outpost"

Distributor: Sony Pictures Home Entertainment

Outpost is a disappointingly dull attempt at a war zombie film.

A wealthy businessman hires a team of mercenaries to act as his bodyguards and escort him to an abandoned World War 2 bunker in war-torn Eastern Europe. The mercenaries, lead by DC (Ray Stevenson, next starring in "The Punisher: War Zone"), do what they're told and don't ask why the man wants to visit the bunker. It is not long though before they happen upon remnants of experiments the Nazis conducted on their own soldiers, experiments whose results were obviously very bloody and very deadly. The situation worsens when they discover a survivor of the experiments clinging to life among the rubble. Just why has the businessman brought them there? And what are those creatures rising from the dead?

With a war horror film you'd think that at the very least, you'd get some nice action sequences. Sadly, Outpost doesn't deliver. The movie moves at a snail's pace throughout. The first half is concentrated on the mercenaries bickering back and forth about the crappy weather conditions and how they would rather be at home boozing it up. Director Steve Barker and writer Rae Brunton try and establish the men as characters but don't really succeed at all. Even after 35 minutes of small talk and bickering, the men still come across as one-dimensional militia types with no distinguishing characteristics available to tell them apart. The result of this is that the majority of the film really achieves nothing. The paranoia experienced by the mercs is so transparent and certainly not believable based on what the film shows us. The idea that men like this would get spooked by blood on the wall and a survivor is not believable in the least.

When it finally decides to get to what should have been the bulk of the film, the rising of and the attack from what can only be called "Nazi Zombies," you'll be so bored with the whole thing that you will be hard-pressed to care about what's happening. Making matters worse, the attack is so short-lived and plainly-staged that it isn't nearly as enthralling as the supposed climax of a film like this should be.

No doubt about it, Outpost has a great premise ("Nazi Zombies!"). Sadly, the filmmakers clearly had no clue what to do with it, making for a tiresome motion picture not worth anyone's time.