★ 7 / 10
Urban Beasts. Outcast is directed by Colm McCarthy
John Chard
Urban Beasts. Outcast is directed by Colm McCarthy and he co-writes the screenplay with his brother Tom. It stars Kate Dickie, Niall Bruton, Hanna Stanbridge…
Urban Beasts.
Outcast is directed by Colm McCarthy and he co-writes the screenplay with his brother Tom. It stars Kate Dickie, Niall Bruton, Hanna Stanbridge, James Nesbitt, Ciarán McMenamin, Josh Whitelaw, Therese Bradley and James Cosmo. Music is by Giles Packham and cinematography by Darran Tiernan.
Mary (Dickie) and her teenage son, Fergal (Bruton), are being tracked by Cathal (Nesbitt), a man using dark arts to achieve his quest. But why is he after them? Can Mary's own witchcraft skills keep them protected? And how come the Scottish housing estate that is their latest home has suddenly started suffering brutal murders?
How nice to find an independant British horror bringing something refreshing to the genre, that of the occult in a modern day housing estate - and a depressingly bleak one at that. McCarthy and his team fill out their picture to a backdrop of urban decay, with narrative splinters involving doomed love, a battle of the black arts and a beastie secret to will out.
There's no rushing going on here, pic is purposely paced slowly, the writing giving us important information in increments. We are only given partial anatomy glimpses of what is comitting the bloody carnage. The key characters have interesting stories of themselves, with two fractured family dynamics at work, while the delve into cryptic rituals and arcane magic as a weapon makes for fascinating viewing.
The big reveal of the perpretrator is something of a let down, for although we are introduced to a new looking creature, the effects work is not great - leaving us hankering for a less is more approach. But it's a minor itch, with a cast on form (does Nesbitt and Dickie even know how to be rubbish in anything anyway), and the colour filters set at social realism, Outcast is a surprise winner of a horror movie. 7/10
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★ 6 / 10
Brave attempt to do something different - doesn't entirely succeed.
basilisksamuk
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…
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.
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★ 6 / 10
Weird, cheap but strangely compelling
elaine-105
What do you get if you cross the plot of Let The Right One In with the special effects of a budget Hulk movie, then set it all in Trainspotting territory, with…
What do you get if you cross the plot of Let The Right One In with the special effects of a budget Hulk movie, then set it all in Trainspotting territory, with a bunch of Irish Gypsy mumbo jumbo thrown in for good measure. Well, fairly obviously, you get low budget horror thriller Outcast.
Intense, witchy Mary and her teenage son Fergal (Kate Dickie and Niall Bruton) are on the run. But when they set fire to their van and accept a scummy council tenancy in a run-down scheme on the outskirts of Edinburgh, it appears that their days on the road are over. Big mistake, as mysterious, tattooed, radge hit-man Cathal (James Nesbitt) is hot on their heels, tracking them down using bizarre divining rituals involving pigeons' entrails. Well, it's hardly as if the reclusive pair are on Facebook.
But while Mary sets about weaving protective spells around their flat, Fergal is off getting to know his new neighbourhood, and in particular feisty 'teenager' Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge), who spends her days caring for her mentally disabled brother while her alcoholic mother lies sprawled on the sofa sleeping off the grog. But as a sudden, awkward and rather unlikely romance starts to blossom, Cal is closing in, having been given the go ahead by the local gypsy king or Laird (played, of course, by James Cosmo, as it is illegal to make a film in Scotland without offering him a part).
All sounds a bit strange. Well, it is, but it's also gory, gritty and weirdly compelling – although not always terribly convincing. Perhaps I just have trouble believing there's black magic taking place on my bus route. Or indeed that such cheesy, playground black magic could be so immediately effective – Rosemary's Baby this ain't.
But that aside, this is a brave film that's genuinely trying to do something different, and while the result is at times cheap and patchy, it's also like nothing you've seen before, a sort of dysfunctional Mike Leigh film for the Twilight generation.
Now where did I put my jar of blood and pile of dead birds? I'm off to cast a spell on a traffic warden
See more of my reviews at www.elainemacintyre.net 8-)
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64%
TOMATOMETER
· 11 reviews
30%
AUDIENCE
· 500 ratings
5.3/10
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