Outpost: Black Sun

Yawn!.... Well, here we go again with yet another savagely vicious zombie movie - But, this time around it's been specially flavoured with a demented Nazi-twist to its storyline, which I guess was supposed to make it much more interesting to watch. But, it didn't.

One of Outpost's biggest strikes against it was the nuisance, meddlesome, female character, Lena. This woman was, pretty much, the only female in what seemed to be a male-dominated cast. And, strike #2 against Outpost was that each of these males was nothing but a typical army jock who was hell-bent on proving to his fellow troopers that his balls hung lower than theirs'.

Anyway - The biggest problem with the Lena character was that one minute she wanted to be treated as if she were just one-of-the-boys, and, then, in the next minute she was demanding special consideration due her gender as a female. (Spare me!)

If that wasn't annoying enough - Outpost was also one of those irksome horror movies where the characters clearly didn't know what the hell they were dealing with (the Nazi zombies), yet, they handled the whole situation with a truly remarkable competence.

In conclusion - For all that it was worth, this super-lame, poorly conceived Zombie/Nazi movie should have really been billed as a twisted slapstick comedy - 'Cause that's all it was to me.

I was looking forward to watching OUTPOST: BLACK SUN, having enjoyed the first film and being a fan of Nazi zombie films in general. However, this sequel appears to have been shot by a crew without much talent, because it's generally a mess, and a poorly-shot mess at that.

The story begins promisingly as a young woman tracks down an old Nazi in Paraguay. It's great to see the veteran Michael Byrne in this minor role. However, things start slipping when she gets teamed up with an obnoxious researcher (Richard Coyle, sporting an American accent) and a team of grunts to go and investigate another Nazi menace.

What this all boils down to is lots of shaky cam work as the characters run around, kill, and are killed by Nazi zombies. The villains are pretty weak here, indistinguishable from loads of other movies, and the characters are paper thin. Everything has been shot in the dark, and clumsily with it, which means the action is no better than something you'd see in the ultra low budget likes of THE ZOMBIE DIARIES: WORLD OF THE DEAD and its ilk. What could have been a strong and terrifying supernatural-themed movie turns out to be badly shot, badly scripted, and completely forgettable to boot.

Bigger is better? Well I didn't find that to be the case with "Outpost II: Black Sun". Director Steve Barker follows up his 2008 action-horror "Outpost" with this sequel which actually expands on the original's concept (Nazi, occult and experimenting) and doesn't just limit its action to the bunker. It loses its simple set-up, which was atmospheric and eerie with a ghost-like tale to its novelty, replacing it with bloodier attacks and kinetic actions where our zombie Nazi storm- troopers lumber through a warn-torn Eastern Europe. The sequel pretty much follows on from the previous feature, as a NATO task force is sent to Eastern Europe where an unstoppable killing force is murdering everything in its path. Lena a Nazi hunter is on the trail of notorious war criminal Klausener, which sees her heading to Eastern Europe where she meets up with Wallace an engineer. In all it's a okay follow up that doesn't limit itself, but adds more to the formula than simply rehashing what has gone before it. The threat isn't confined this time around and there are few surprises. Some motivations of certain players can be blurry with how the plot develops, but it did become somewhat weary the further along it went with a lazily dismal ending to cap it off. The performances are durable with Richard Coyle and Catherine Steadman in the leads, but I didn't find any of the characters, especially their support to stand out. Barker seems to replace the slow-burn suspense of the original for brutality. It might not be as rough around the edges, but the action did feel choppy and still have that repetitiveness that lingered in the original. An atmosphere is created bringing out a grim apocalyptic air and the dead zombie soldiers (which the make-up FX is strongly detailed) have a lumbering appearance that can break out into a vicious intensity. But here don't have that ghost ability to teleport and to come out of the shadows. David Gant looks creepy as the dead Nazi general Klausener.

As others have noted Outpost 2 starts out with interesting opening, a bit of back story to the first enjoyable outing. Of course this is solid B Movie territory.

Alas momentum is soon lost as the movie sags with a depressingly predictable script swaying into ridiculous cliché, (Nazi hag Zombie ?!) The first Outpost worked because it had some genuine suspense, decent horror and likable non cardboard characters.

if your a fan of the first and or the sub-sub genre of Nazi super Zombie it's probably still worth a watch, it looks well and does flirt with interesting moments.

Early John Carpenter this is not a real shame as the original Outpost certainly was close. The awful poster sums it up.

Misjudged.

As a big fan of the first film I was looking forward to seeing black sun .The budget seemed slightly bigger than the first but sadly had removed the very things that made the first film great.If you've seen the first film , then you will know that the Nazi super soldier zombies could teleport using unified field physics which was used to make them into super soldiers of doom.All they seemed to do in this film was walk! Secondly being super zombie soldiers they used to move silently in the first film.In this one they make cliché zombie noises for no reason what so ever.The thing that really irritated me about this film the most was the zombie hag witch!she was'nt in the first film (thank god)There was no explanation as to who,why or what her purpose was.In this film all she did was hobble around the bunkers tunnels laughing in the style of a pantomime witch escorted by two zombie soldiers. When I first started watching the film it started off great with a bit of a back story to the bunkers creation but then degenerated into a yawn fest.I don't know why they had a stupid hag woman zombie in it? I have no clue why they made the super soldiers into average soldiers that made daft noises giving away their location all the time.Since they did'nt teleport anymore ,they should've given the zombie soldiers little pink bikes with bells on so they could get around quick .Even though the first film did'nt make me jump , it did have a few moments that demonstrated how sadistic the soldiers could be , this also seemed missing in black sun. I liked the first film that much I actually bought it to add to my collection, the second one I won't be buying .

p.s. The acting in the film was good (apart from the cliché zombies)and if the director had kept the very things that made ouptost great this movie would've also been great.I hope if they make a 3rd film they re watch number one and realise they removed the things that made Outpost unique.