What I watched this weekend...

For one reason and another, this weekend was more about watching films on DVD than it was about reading books (although books have been read and reviews will be going up later this week...) This weekend was also about surprises, particularly when my father-in-law asked me if I had any horror films worth watching. Talk about things you never expect to hear...
Anyway, I had a couple of DVDs that I hadn’t got round to watching so I thought we could give them a try. One of them worked but the other one didn’t go down quite so well. See if you can work out which is which...



‘Outpost’
Nazi Zombies! They’re always good in a horror film. Except these aren’t so much Nazi Zombies as they are ‘Nazi Super Zombies rendered indestructible by Cosmic Rays’ which has to be even better! And it is. ‘Outpost’ recounts the tale of an ill fated mission to loot the contents of an underground SS bunker and what happens once the sun goes down. These days you have to ask yourself why teams of battle hardened mercenaries insist on raiding places where military experiments have taken place. Haven’t they figured out what’s likely to happen when they go into these places? Luckily for the father-in-law and I, DC’s team of mercenaries thought this was just going to be an ‘in and out job’; how wrong they were... ‘Outpost’ hasn’t got the best script in the world but a solid concept coupled with a fine line in tension being drawn out (to some particularly gory ends) makes this a film that’s worth a look if you like horror, zombies or both at the same time. And it looks good too; gunfights between mercenaries and Nazi Zombies are always welcome in this house! IMDB has mention of a sequel and I’ll definitely be checking that out when it arrives.



‘Black Sheep’
Here’s one that I’d picked up weeks ago and then completely forgotten about... until last night. ‘Outpost’ had gone down a treat so I thought we could give this one a go too. After watching ‘Black Sheep’ the question on my mind was how much can you laugh at a film before you’re laughing at it for all the wrong reasons? ‘Black Sheep’ (genetic modification breeds killer sheep on a New Zealand farm) was a lot of fun but I was laughing a lot more than I normally would. Was it the appallingly bad ‘lamb puppet’ that tore off a guy’s ear? Was it the actors deciding that the best way to deal with the script was to take a run at it and yell lots? Possibly ‘yes’ to both of those questions... Having said that though jokes about sheep farts never stop being funny, at least in this film anyway. ‘Black Sheep’ is a lot of fun but don’t even try and take it seriously, you might hurt yourself.



‘Dead Set’
Just over a year since it was on television and I finally get round to watching this tale of zombies attacking the Big Brother House (something I’ve often thought about!) I am so bad at keeping up to date with what’s on television...
I’ve been meaning to get round to this one for a while now and it was well worth the wait. I prefer zombies that shamble rather than run but I was willing to let that one go as the episodic nature of ‘Dead Set’ (I watched this one at various points over the weekend) meant that things had to move quickly. And they certainly moved quickly! The action did not let up for a second and even when things quietened down we still got an in depth look at how the survivors were coping with the zombie threat. Fraught and tense are the words of the day here! As always, the zombies don’t need to stir up the survivors as our band of Big Brother contestants and production crew are more than capable of fragmenting all by themselves. While I could see how things would deteriorate I wasn’t entirely convinced by the manner in which the zombies finally stormed the TV studios. I don’t want to give too much away (even though I’m possibly the last person to have seen ‘Dead Set’ for the first time!) but I couldn’t see why one particular character did what he did...
Despite this though, ‘Dead Set’ made for some superb viewing (and the nods to the original ‘Dawn of the Dead’, and the remake, were a nice touch as well) All good things come to a Graeme who waits :o)

Back to book reviews tomorrow...