Two nights ago I watched British steampunk psychological horror
Outpost 11 (2012). The movie is strange but very good.
From a simple starting point, Outpost 11 slowly descends into the weird and then the weirder. Bringing in body horror, giant spiders, strange visions, paranoia, madness, and constant hints and clues that all is not what it seems. You will be left guessing until the end.
Outpost 11 is set in an alternate reality where Victorian steam power still rules the world. It is 1955 and Britain and Prussia have been at war with each other for decades in the Second Hundred Year War and three British soldiers - Albert, Mason and Graham - are manning a remote and lonely listening post in the Arctic Circle, listening to Prussian messages. One day the warning light goes off unexpectedly and their world is plunged into chaos, as they become prey to an unknown, alien enemy.
The film opens with black and white grainy footage of a walrus-moustached British Colonel, announcing that this takes place in the 50s during ‘the Second Hundred Year War against the Prussian War Machine’. Outpost 11 is a listening post in the Arctic Circle (with the moutains of Scotland doubling as the Arctic), trying to pick up enemy transmissions. In lieu of a boiler room, it’s powered by the Omega Machine, a device whose exact nature remains unexplained but appears to be semi-organic in nature. Its three-man detail consists of tough but easy-going officer Mason (Healy), green recruit Albert (Mayes-Cooper) and burned-out corporal Graham (Clarke.)
Graham is, according to Mason, ‘a soldier of the old war,’ pressed into the military in boyhood and a survivor of countless horrors. When he’s not sniffing something from a tin (snuff, perhaps, or cocaine) he’s usually masturbating surreptitiously, but all that holds him together is devotion to duty and to God, King and Country. Albert is constantly on the receiving end of his anger for failing to carry out his duties to Graham’s satisfaction, with Mason, who shows a half-fatherly, half-homoerotic affection towards the young recruit, working to keep the peace between them.
A red warning light begins to flash, signalling a possible attack, and a coded message arrives, reading: “God has forsaken us. Abandon all hope.” Graham develops a pustulent spot on his hand, which opens to reveal an eyeball, which evolves in turn into a grotesque, spider-like creature. As other bizarre and unreal phenomena assail the three men and their grip on reality, Graham grows increasingly unhinged and dangerous.
There’s actually a lot to like here. Anthony Woodley has put together a fascinating, off-beat film, with a weird, atmospheric score by Charlie Khan. The world of the film is an odd mish-mash of technologies – First World War era rifles, uniforms and telephones rub shoulders with video recorders, laser-pistols and the almost Lovecraftian Omega Machine – and despite the film’s micro-budget, he conjures up some unsettling visuals and potent atmospherics.
There are strong performances all round from the three leads, but it’s Billy Clarke’s performance as Graham that makes the film. Graham is alternately comical, pathetic, frightening and deeply pitiable, a man who’s never known anything but war, who’s lost everything, suffered terribly and yet clings to an ever-more fanatical patriotism and devotion to duty against the creeping dread that his whole life has been thrown away for nothing. Even though he’s half-mad already, his psychological disintegration is at the heart of the film, and possibly its most compelling aspect.
Outpost 11 2nd Trailer - YouTube
Film Review: Outpost 11 » This Is Horror