Twitter Plot Summary: A new team head into the bunker to stop the undead Nazis from spreading out further.
Five Point Summary:
1. Some old Nazi men…
2. American woman heads into the zone.
3. More secrets in that old Nazi bunker.
4. Cackling Nazi woman.
5. Surprise ending.
Outpost: Black Sun opens with a few old men trying to look vaguely menacing. It’s not the most auspicious of starts given that the first Outpost movie effectively kick-started the Nazi Zombie sub-genre. Some might argue that it was never a film that needed a sequel, but the finale there was sufficiently open-ended for it to carry on and explain some of the science behind their resurrection – for better or for worse.
As such, the story picks up almost directly from the end of the first Outpost, with American Nazi hunter Lena (Catherine Steadman) and engineer Wallace (Richard Coyle) making their way into the war zone under the radar to seek out reanimated Nazi General Klausener (David Gant), that chap who was menacing the first time round.
Coyle, most famously known for his role as Jeff in the Stephen Moffat-created relationship sitcom Coupling, sports an unnecessary American accent as an engineer who finds himself heading back towards the original bunker as the undead Nazi menace starts spreading further and further away. On their way there he and Lena encounter yet another small group of soldiers who are heading to the bunker to bring an end to the Nazis once and for all.
The question is raised as to why the soldiers don’t use any heavy artillery to resolve the issue, but that’s perhaps being a little too pedantic, and in fairness they do provide a small explanation for this by the end. It also raises the question as to why they keep sending in small teams to obliterate the threat rather than HALO jumping to the source and dealing with the problem more efficiently. Again, this is perhaps also being a touch on the pedantic side.
If there’s an area where Black Sun falls short, it’s in that it doesn’t get close to recreating the tension that was built up when Ray Stevenson led his team into the bunker in the first place. By explaining precisely what has brought the Nazis back from the dead, rather than doing what the first film did and focusing more on the action and violence, it loses what made the original compelling. That’s not to say there isn’t a sufficient amount of violence here – there is – but violence in itself does not a good movie make. Telling almost exactly the same story as before, with a creepy Nazi zombie woman thing and some science fiction-esque energy powers added for good measure, does not a good movie make. That and the whole “old Nazi” plot doesn’t get enough time to be fully explored, although this appears to be likely in the third movie.
It might not be as good as the first movie, but does an effective job of expanding on the mythos without ruining the good work of the opening salvo. If you enjoyed Outpost then it’s not necessary to watch Black Sun, but if you had any lingering questions as to why the Nazis were being reanimated and charged with a desire to kill pretty much everybody in their way, then Black Sun does cover this, albeit sadly not to the same compelling level as before.
Score: 2.5/5
