Outpost

You can't kill what's already dead.

Outpost is a movie about a team of mercenaries who are hired to scope out an old World War Two bunker in war-torn Eastern Europe at the behest of a mysterious scientist. It soon becomes apparent that the bunker was a secret research facility into reality-bending experiments done by the Nazis... and that the bunker's last garrison might not be as dead as they should be.

Drawing on the sci-fi fanon of urban legends like The Bell and the Philadelphia Experiment this is a remarkably polished low-budget horror.

Not to be confused with the Outpost computer games.

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Tropes used in Outpost include:

• Applied Phlebotinum: Die Glocke ("The Bell"), a popular urban legend about a secret Nazi Wunderwaffe.
• Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: The Bell was a machine to remove the unified field from everyday objects - in this case people - allowing them to become immaterial; exactly the same thing that happened to Dr. Manhattan from Watchmen.
• Badass: Most of the mercenaries, but especially DC and Prior.
• California Doubling: Scotland is used as a stand-in for Eastern Europe.
• Can You Hear Me Now?: The radio is totalled after the first attack.
• Captain Smooth and Sergeant Rough: DC and Prior.
• Child Soldiers: Mentioned as past of Cotter's backstory.
• Closed Circle: Thankfully for the rest of the world, the undead SS are trapped within the confines of the fields of the device. Unlucky for anyone else straying too close...
• Cluster F-Bomb: To be expected in a film full of realistic mercenary types.
• Deadpan Snarker: MacKay.
• Deep Southerner heavily averted with Prior who looks like a typical redneck (and even is referred to as such by DC), but is a generally calm-mannered, atheist professional.
• Defensive Feint Trap: The plan to trap the Nazis in the test chamber. It doesn't work.
  • Or rather it does, but then the power goes off...
• Deliberately Monochrome: The movie itself is heavily desaturated and uses so limited palette that many scenes look like if they were shot in sepia. There are also occasional splash of color (the discovery of Nazi emblem and working Device are good examples of the latter).
• Eye Scream: The first two victims of undead soldiers, especially the first one he has a rifle case forced into eye socket causing a violent spurt of blood and aqueous humour and later, when a mercenary is finally killed one can see remains of an eyeball hanging from the socket.
• Fake Nationality: A Russian, Belgian, Yugoslav and German characters are all played by British, Irish or American actors.
• Ghostapo: The Nazis are almost literally ghosts.
• Gorn: To be expected in any movie about undead Nazis, but the SS troopers themselves seem to be quite a fan of this for kicks.
• Gratuitous Russian Taktarov's profanities painfully show that he is definitely not Russian or even a Slav.
• Kill'Em All
• Legion of Lost Souls
• Lost Technology: If the generator really does work, it'd be worth billions.
• Mr. Exposition: Mr. Hunt is the only one with any clue over what he's getting the mercenaries into, and as the situation worsens more information is wrung out of him.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Zombie Nazis... who are invisible and can walk through walls.
• Not Using the Z Word
• Oh Crap: Several times, but especially when MacKay is tending the Sole Survivor, bends down... and sees two sets of muddy army boots under the table belonging to people who definitely aren't there.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The backers of the expedition; Hunt tells DC bluntly that if they pull out early, said council will have their families killed.
• Our Zombies Are Different: Type R with a vengeance.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Quite gruesomely averted.

"His brains are all over the wall. That's good enough for me."

• • Also played straight with all the point-blank headshots shown in the recording of the experiments.
• Private Military Contractors
• Ragtag Bunch of Misfits
• Redshirt Army: Both the mercenaries and, inevitably, the team that are sent in to relieve them.
• The Remnant: The inhabitants of the titular outpost.
• Shout-Out: DC's pistol uses the sound effect from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
• Semper Fi: There is a Royal Marine(DC) and a US Marine (Prior).
• Sole Survivor: "The Breather"
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler
• Super Soldier: What the Nazis very nearly succeeded in creating.
• Those Wacky Nazis: The entire film runs on this. The premise is that in their dabblings with the occult and science, they invented a machine that could make their soldiers Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence in order to become unkillable and... invisible.
• The Troubles: Hinted at with MacKay, an Irish soldier in British uniform.

"Where I come from, you don't join the British Army."

• Viewers Are Geniuses: The introductory scene shows that all characters are members of elite military units. This however is never commented upon but must be inferred from the badges on the characters' uniforms (that are shown casually but long enough to catch the viewer's eye).
• Villain Teleportation
• Wicked Cultured: Prior tries hard to be this with his endless philosophising, but he's too much of an evil Badass.

"I fuckin' love culture!"

• Zombie Gait: Averted, in that they're not zombies in the classic sense.