Outcast

First off, I don't understand why some people were so critical of this film. Having watched countless terrible so called movies from the horror genre this last year, very few could hold my attention. Yes, I will agree, it started of a wee bit slow, and yes at times you didn't know who to like more, the hunters or the hunted. Personally I thought this was quite refreshing. The setting was wonderful for an ex-pat Scot like myself, it's a pity more movies aren't made in Scotland. Of course there are parallels with Let me in, but the whole gypsy/druidic slant was nice and the acting on the whole was more than adequate and a lot better than low budget American movies where recently the actors seem to be hitting all time new lows in believability or likability. I thought this film kept my interest right up to the end, the ending wasn't as predictable as people make out, as the director really did paint quite a ambiguous slant to the main protagonist (or was that protagonists?). Anyway, for all fans of Edinburgh and people who want more from a horror movie than just another slasher psycho you should come away with few disappointments. Serious thrills are few, so I might well put this more in a supernatural category rather than horror. I think the problem with recent horror is it's hard to top the excesses of Saw and few have the storytelling genius of a director like Guillermo Del Toro to eke out a superb horror without an excess of gore. To sum up, a good attempt at a Scottish LET ME IN, not incredible but compared with recent dross a must see for horror fans who are waiting in vain for another great film like The Shining.

I saw this film as part of the "Imagine" film festival 2011 in Amsterdam. The synopsis sounded promising, but the end result could have been much better, even with identical ingredients. Several story lines and related characters were not exploited fully, and the plot offered much more potential. There is also a plus side: the casting was very good, and the acting was believable throughout. For a film of this category, the latter is essential.

In the first half hour an overwhelming series of characters passes by, alas without proper introduction how they were related and what made them tick. The synopsis as published by the film festival, did not offer much to tie things together. And last but not least, the dialect did not help either (though considering myself reasonably fluent in English, part of the dialog escaped me).

The initial confusion disappeared later on. The story got some flesh gradually in the last hour, and something was beginning to happen. That was where the horror element became apparent. Unexplainable things occurred, but we were left in the dark what was underneath all those events. In other words, precisely what we came for.

I'm not sure about the explicit and uncontrolled violence throughout the story. For example, the audible breaking of someone's fingers one by one, in an attempt to extract information, is very unpleasant to watch and hear. We also saw a lot of self mutilation, with blood riddled results, but that was an inherent part of the story line, hence fitting its purpose. Nevertheless, I saw much more uncontrolled violence than I was prepared for, even in the context of this film festival.

All in all, when leaving the theater I gave a "so so" rating for the public prize competition. As said above, there were a lot of promising ingredients, but the end result was much less than could be achieved with a bit more thought on character exposition and story development.

"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.

It's difficult to know what movie-goers want sometimes. Do they want the usual product with its anodyne plot line, CGI and names you've heard of? Or do they want something different that might challenge their preconceptions of what a good movie is? Do they want to praise a film for trying to be a bit different even if not perfect or do they look for signs of weakness in anything they see, delighting in the opportunity to trash something?

Outcast has a lot of faults. The creature effects are a bit wobbly, it's slow in places and could do with tightening up, some of the acting is mediocre. And yet this does try to be different. It's horror mixed with social realism as some have already pointed out. It's visually striking and well photographed although shaky cam sometimes gets the better of it. Some of the acting is very good indeed – I was particularly impressed by the ferocity of both Kate Dickie and James Nesbitt and kudos to him for appearing in this low budget film yet not holding anything back.

The story will make you work and it will help if you have some concept of how myths and legends operate (and who doesn't, it's in our psyche). There is a resolution which makes perfect sense in the context of the story. It's not a fun movie and probably not a date movie! Outcast is a brave attempt to make something different. It has lots of faults but they are ones I am happy to forgive because of the efforts and obvious good intentions of all involved in making it.

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.