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.

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.

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.