Outcast (2010)

Overrated

Excellent but underrated film

This is a tender, generous movie that likes its characters and presents them as real people, full of flaws and strengths.

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

. Intense Mother Mary (Dickie) moves her teenage son Fergal (Bruton) into a depressed apartment complex in Edinburgh. Obviously they seem to be hiding from someone or thing as Mary begins painting strange protection symbols on the apartment walls and has a nude ritual she carries out. Fergal makes friends with a neighbor girl Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge) with romance in mind. Simultaneously we are introduced to Liam (McMenamin) and Cathal (Nesbitt), hunters who believe Fergal is something other than human. With their mission to destroy him the hunt begins. Meanwhile a vicious beast is attacking and slaughtering people in and around the depressed area. Director Colm McCarthy co-wrote with Tom K. McCarthy on this interesting take on the monster on the loose film. McCarthy keeps you guessing to what and who is the beast and even which side you should be rooting for. This mystery helps move the movie along until you get the reveal later of who is the scary looking beast that is ripping people apart. The problem is once we find out who it is the screenwriters never give much of a back story as to why all this is happening. This lessens the overall effect of the movie, but it still has a lot going for it. The monster is a nasty thing that does a gory good number on those it kills, so the gore level is high. There are a number of nice jump scares and McCarthy uses the depressed look of the neighborhood to create and ominous atmosphere. Overall, this movie is scary and entertaining and worth a watch. Its biggest sin is the lack of motivation for everything that is happening.

A mom, her teenage son, and the dog arrive at some housing complex. Because "it's the end of the road" she decides to burn the van. Next door lives a multicultural girl with her disabled brother and the drunk mom. The girl, Nella, falls for the boy, Fergal. One night, Fergal's mom cuts herself and uses the blood to paint markings on the walls.Meanwhile some sinister-looking guy, Cathal, gets his back tattooed with symbols similar to those on the walls. He and some other guy, Liam, decide to hunt "the boy". But first they have to ask some old guy for permission to hunt on his domain, which he grants them but he doesn't grant them permission to use the dead for divination. But Cathal who's also a drunk is so eager to hunt that he breaks all sorts of magical rules and thus warns the mom. They are getting close to their prey.Some monster is also butchering mostly girls at night at the projects. We learn a lot more about the strange mom. She's overprotective of her son and isolates him from society, especially from girls.The movie doesn't try to explain itself too well at first but we find out things indirectly. The mom is some different kind of being. She was raped as a teen and a result of that only a monster could arise. Cathal is Fergal's uncle and he's hunting Fergal, who is also the monster. Fergal and Nella decide to escape it all just when Nerghal is about to catch up with him and he engages in a magical battle with the mom. Problem is that Nella doesn't know who she's gotten involved with.Outcast story is based on Celtic tales we are told, which is pretty cool. I'm all for filming that sort of thing. It's a neat story actually. But it just isn't told well here. This is the kind of movie that you want to dislike at first, it's as if it wants to you to dislike it, you expect very little from it. But eventually it wins you over. There are some bothering plot holes. Why burn the van when you are being followed, followed by guys on foot? Why cover up the protective symbols on walls? The monster attacks innocent girls at night, but suddenly it develops a conscience and attacks a bad kid during the day. The mother is overprotective of the boy during the day but is fine with the monster roaming and killing at will at night? The social setting isn't exactly pleasant or enjoyable either. I guess you could argue that a story of magic and a different "kind" requires that, but wouldn't that be "offensive"? A lot of British film and TV is getting enchanted with this social class. It's that or the royals. No middle ground, no middle class. As a result the cast isn't particularly attractive. There's a lot male nudity and no appealing female nudity (Mary Dickie doesn't count).But there's a lot to like about Outcast, too. The story again, is excellent. The young kids are likable enough. Then there's the monster all latex and prosthetics, and it's so well done. The monster is genuinely creepy and bizarre. He's humanoidish, large, hunches over, but very disproportionate, with a huge chest and tiny abdomen. He's face is quite distorted but remains human. In an age when CGI dominates special effects despite looking like crap, it's always refreshing to see horror movies use excellent physical effects.Overall, a movie worth seeing for a fresh story set in Scottland/Ireland. I wouldn't mind seeing sequels/prequels. Not to mention that there must be plenty more of tales like these that lend themselves to be filmed as horror movies.

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.