Outcast

Well, this movie was sort of interesting in some ways, and dreadfully boring in others.

The good parts about the movie was the setting, being in a run down apartment building, so there was sort of a gritty feel to the movie. And also the characters were quite interesting.

"Outcast" provides you with a somewhat good enough cast for the roles in the movie. Ciarán McMenamin, playing Liam (one of the two hunters) actually did a quite nice job in the movie. As did Hanna Stanbridge, playing Petronella. And despite having a really small role in the movie, then James Cosmo brought his usual grace to the movie. Just a shame that he didn't have more screen time.

The movie takes a long time to build up its thrills, and when they do climax, it is sort of a disappointment, because nothing much actually does happen. You sit around, waiting and waiting, but nothing fruitful happens. Now, I am not saying that the movie is all together bad, it just drags on for a very long time. And the story told in "Outcast" proved interesting enough in a way.

What killed off the movie experience for me was the time the movie took to get from A to B, with very little happening in between. Had there been more action and a quicker pace to it, this movie would have been awesome.

And the 'beast', well what little you did see of it actually looked promising enough, but not nearly enough was shown of the creature in my opinion, and that also brought down the movie a notch. I like to see what we are dealing with, not being kept in the dark with only rare glimpses of what is out there.

In overall, the movie had great potential, it was just killed off by its slow, dull pace. And that was a shame.

I don't tend to be a huge fan of modern day British horror, so it's refreshing to see something this smart, original and entertaining. Writer/director Colm McCarthey has crafted here a supernatural kitchen sink horror that entwines both aspects with skill, unobtrusive social comment and psychological intensity. The film follows Fergal and his mother Mary, set up in a flat on a run down estate, though mysterious hunters are after them and both Mary and Fergal have things to hide, brooding concerns that unfold during the course of the film. I've kept this summary vague because a lot of the fun here comes in watching things unfold, but let's just say that spell-casting strangeness, mythology and violent death are involved. Beyond the plot mechanics lie the real interests of the film, brought out partly in setting and characters and as strongly in the assortment of fine acting turns at hand. The film is concerned with family and culture and their tensions, characters have an assortment of backgrounds, Irish, Scottish, Polish and less defined varieties of "other". Conflicts mount, based not on easy illustrations of racism but family ties, sexual fears and adolescence, the film has even its minor characters picking through a minefield and an ever present feel that its gritty locales could erupt. Speaking of gritty locales, the cinematography of Darran Teirnan does a great job of grounding everything in recognisable reality, with palpable run-down atmosphere. The character seeth as much as the setting, Kate Dickie is most powerful as Mary, high strung, unsettling in the clammy closeness of her concerns for Fergal and convincingly, even erotically pagan during her supernatural scenes. Niall Bruton is effective as Fergal, a quiet and haunted fellow with a certain inner grace, yearning and sympathetic edge. Hanna Stanbridge stands out as an earthy and foul mouthed but irresistibly attractive fellow tenant with the hots for Fergal, good contrast to the wilder goings on, while James Nesbitt is great as a grimly determined, ambitious and shifty hunter. Outcast moves at a quick pace, though horror junkies should note that the film is as driven by drama of the more conventional kind as it is horror hi-jinks. Gore and effects are used sparingly but to good effect, with the distinct advantage of being fairly unusual in their use. The only significant problem here is some of the shaky camera work used, though once or twice it is good at conveying an impression without showing too much, it detracts from the climax where a better view of proceedings would have been much appreciated. Altogether, I thought this one rather ace, it takes a little getting into and the contrast of setting and shenanigans will undoubtedly jar for a fair few viewers, but for me pretty well everything worked great. A solid recommendation from me then, 8/10.

This was really just meant to be a filler film for me at the Edinburgh International Film Festival, I just thought I'd cram in as many films as possible and went along to a late night showing of Outcast.

It was actually really really good, and compared to the pap you get to see these days if you turn up at the cinema expecting horror fare, extraordinary. Successful horror plunges deep into fears that we have, here there's some really good stuff about sexual insecurity and fear of one's own burgeoning sexuality during adolescence, fear of pregnancy, fear of homelessness, anger about parental domination.

It's a story about Mary (played by Kate Dickie - the lead in Red Road) and her adolescent son Fergal (Niall Bruton). They're on the run and hiding in an Edinburgh housing estate. The mother clearly has supernatural capabilities and is being hunted by Cathal (James Nesbitt) who has been temporarily given similar supernatural capabilities. It's a ritualistic hunt. Nesbitt usually plays debonair blarney-spouting roles but is cast against type as the baddie here, which is quite refreshing.

There's some sort of underground feudalism going on as well, as Cathal crosses territory and has to ask a gentleman called The Laird for permission to hunt on his grounds. Maybe some secret yearnings for the feudal past going on here. What works well with all the supernatural stuff is that it's hinted that there are much larger issues at play, but these are left as mysterious.

Fergal wants to hang with Petronella, a lovely wee lassie with a short skirt who is intent on laying him from the moment he arrives on the estate. There's a good young love story here and as well a good sex scene. Mary is very keen for Fergal to stay away from Petronella and insistently suppresses him. There are some very creepy scenes where Mary dominates Fergal and warns him away from girls.

The special effects scenes work really well, but I don't want to spoil those for you, I would just say though that I felt they produced a good personification of some of the fears I've been referring to.

Anyway this is a film I would describe as a cauldron of angst and desire, I think it deserves to be seen, the audience applauded spontaneously at the end, if it didn't at least get a wide release in Scotland, that would be a tragedy. Walking back to my hotel that night (a long walk) was damned spooky given I was in the location of the movie!

"Outcast" looked like one of the most anonymous and modest titles that were scheduled in this year's edition of the Brussels Festival of Fantastic Films, but I'm nevertheless very glad that I went to see it, as this was one of the most imaginative & courageously ambitious stories in a long time. The film is still quite flawed and lacks steadiness, but it's most definitely a welcome chance of pace from the nowadays overload of brainless slashers and tepid remakes. Strange as it may sound, "Outcast" is a fusion between fantasy horror and social drama. And it works, too! Imagine yourself an alliance between directors Ken Loach, with his typical proletariat setting and characters, and Mike Newell how he directed "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". The convoluted plot, courtesy of the brothers Tom and Colm McCarthy, hints at multiple themes and maintains a mysterious atmosphere throughout, but still unfolds as a coherent and surefooted horror story. Mary and her shy adolescent son Fergal carry a sinister secret with them. This secret forces them to continuously move between cities, because they're hunted down by a couple of warriors that use black magic to track them down. They end up in a lower class apartment block in Edinburgh, where the unworldly Feral promptly falls for the local foul-mouthed and feisty Petronella. Mary desperately tries to boycott the relationship, especially because she senses the hunters Cathal and Liam approaching, but the love is for real. Meanwhile, the family's aforementioned secret is spreading mayhem and terror in the grisly Edinburgh neighborhood. I know this is all very vague, but it would really be a shame to reveal too much about the widely versatile story. The script features Irish folklore elements as well as Scottish mythology, and everything wonderfully merges together with the grim and depressing setting. In fact, everything in this movie merges together well, even the hardcore gory massacres with the genuinely touching romance sub plot. The acting is great, with particularly the young Hanna Stanbridge excelling above the rest. She even makes the plebs Scottish accent sound like poetry; what a marvelous girl.

And what is it? It is a low budget horror movie and looks like people who put low ratings maybe think this is a Hollywood movie with meryl streeps in the lead role

But its not and I think they have done the best they can with small pockets, the story is good, different and clever, its slow but not in a bad way, you get trapped pretty fast in the movie and wondering whats it all about, perhaps its a bit sloppy time to time, little fast and shortcuts, but ok - the effects are well done and acting is british quality, the director might be the weak link in this, small mistakes, like what happends with the dog that suddenly was gone

Im pretty sensetive with low budget movies and dislike most of them , but this was a total ok movie with good efforts, worth watching twice.