Flasz On Film

Jordan Peele is a great example of someone who has recently made a successful – and dare I say stunning – transition from being a formidable comedian to one of the foremost artistic voices within the mainstream of horror today. Now, with the release of Outpost, Joe Lo Truglio (for whom it is also a move from acting to assume the mantle of a film director) seems ready to test whether there is some more room on the shelf for genre converts.  

Lo Truglio’s feature directorial debut stars Beth Dover (who is his wife in real life, by the way) as Kate, a victim of domestic violence looking for inner peace. In order to find some much-needed closure, she enlists – thanks to a few strings pulled on by her friend Nickie (Ta’Rea Campbell) – as a volunteer with the local fire department deployed as a lookout at a remote outpost. Hoping to establish a new life routine and work through her recent trauma in solitude, Kate takes on this challenge and moves to the wilderness where the only interactions with other humans include a strange widower Reggie (Dylan Baker) living a few miles away and some odd encounters with hikers making their way through the area. Or at least so it would seem because as the story unfolds, Kate finds she might have to face off against something truly dark and sinister. 

Anyone even vaguely skilled in the art will be immediately able to pinpoint at least one major reference which makes Outpost an interesting specimen. The Shining. However, before you locate your fountain pen to write a strongly worded letter denouncing my credentials, such as they are, for even attempting to besmirch Stanley Kubrick’s memory by comparing his opus to a lowly piece of genre schlock nobody will remember next summer, just take a breath and relax. It is not my intention to draw Kubrick into this conversation, even though I just did. But I will say that I shall be sorely disappointed if Outpost becomes a piece of schlock nobody will remember next summer, because it doesn’t deserve to be committed to oblivion. It’s a genre sleeper that owes a lot not necessarily to Kubrick, but to the man whose work Kubrick adapted – Stephen King.  

In fact, this entire premise of a woman left to her own devices in the arse end of nowhere with nothing but her thoughts to keep her company feels incredibly familiar to anyone versed in Stephen King’s work. In addition to The Shining, which is the most obvious and direct point of comparison between the two films, you can also add Gerald’s Game and even Misery as key references. In a way, this whole “The Shining in the woods” conceit (which you are welcome to slap on the Blu-Ray cover of this movie if you so desire) plays out as though it was adapted from a short story King may have written in the 90s and stuck it in one of his many collected volumes. But it wasn’t. Outpost was written by Joe Lo Truglio as an original, and at this point it remains unclear if these Stephen King infusions have seeped into the narrative because the author wanted them to, or if it was a result of pop cultural osmosis.  

Either of these two options is equally fascinating, come to think of it. What is more, this King connection also suggests something incredibly useful to the viewer about to embark on the experience of watching this movie, which at least superficially resembles what we have collectively defined as an elevated horror. Our minds have now become trained to look for certain clues and to perhaps pigeonhole a perfectly serviceable piece of psychological horror as a work of elevated metaphorical fiction with at least one false bottom and an allegorical interpretation to be mapped over the top of its primary narrative. Outpost is not one of those movies in my opinion. It looks like one, but – just like many Stephen King novels and short stories – its ambition is a bit more straightforward.  

Sure, it is a film about trauma where the crux lies in the viewer cohabiting with the protagonist in her headspace. In fact, some of the more interesting and unsettling sequences in the movie stem from the simple idea of seeing what Kate thinks she is seeing, not necessarily what happens in reality. But it is not an open invitation to treat the entire movie as a work of genre symbolism akin to Hereditary. This movie is just a competent and effective cabin fever thriller with a well-built unreliable narrator and a penchant for homage (whether coincidental or preplanned) towards one of the greatest modern writers in the genre of horror.  

Once you understand this, you shall see Outpost for what it is, which is an incredibly lean and effective piece of genre filmmaking that doesn’t ever attempt to upset the status quo or advance any kind of generalized social commentary we should talk about once the credits roll. It’s just not one of those movies and it is perfectly content working with these complex emotional states as opposed to commenting on them. Therefore, we don’t quite see Beth Dover’s character as an avatar for some kind of general strife and we are just allowed to interact with her as a person. She is just a female descendant of Jack Torrance without a typewriter.  

Hence, what we are invited to do as viewers is to just have some good old-fashioned fun with this movie because we are excused from having to think hard about what it might want to become once we see the narrative for what it truly is. It is what it is and what we project upon it is ours and ours alone. So, you are perfectly entitled to treat Outpost metaphorically and read into it a bit. Lo Truglio gives us enough latitude to get away with some intellectual legwork.  

But equally, it is just a refreshing and simple example of confined storytelling that leverages its character work and places a lot of trust in Beth Dover, who truly stepped up to the plate here. It also remembers how to capitalize on the most visceral aspects of horror filmmaking with its occasional excursions into the realms of suggestively shocking attempts at violence and gore, which I can only describe as “Kingian.” Outpost isn’t a blood and guts gorefest replete with fake blood and imagery that would get Eli Roth to give his stamp of approval, but rather a movie that relies more on our imagination and making indirect connotations.  

All in all, Outpost can be counted as one hell of a surprise and a true gem. It’s a movie equivalent of a sleeper car that looks like a regular estate but packs a hand built V8 engine with six hundred horsepower under the bonnet. An average Joe will never be able to tell it apart from a regular car until it blasts off like a supercar having briefly stopped at a red light next to them, unless they know where to look for clues. But here I am to tell you that Outpost is one such sleeper movie. It looks perfectly mundane and unassuming, but it packs an immense punch. And it’s all because of its patron saint Stephen King, the master of crafting horror out of what goes on in people’s heads when they are left alone with their thoughts for a bit too long.