Outpost: Black Sun
Overall Recommendation
Recommendation?
This is a fun movie to watch. I enjoyed it, even going into it admittedly prejudiced against it. The female lead is fucking SOLID, in fact, all the acting was good. This is sort of like, well, Silent Hill, or Resident Evil, although, both of those examples are movie universes set to promote videogame sales. But what I meant is that this is it’s own… fuck. What’s the term. This is it’s own subgenre, for lack of better, and the premise itself is a bit silly. I do not prefer it to what I grew up with and consider cannon. All that tie-straightening piddly aside though, this is a really fun movie to watch. Sure, at times you’re positive that you’re watching looped footage, but you’re not sure why, so it’s all good. The ending? Who the fuck knows what that’s all about. Will we have more movies in the same bunker? Are we all about the lightsaber thing? Are we going to get to see her in skin-tight leather, maybe on an exotic motorcycle? I have no idea what the future holds for this line, but this is better than the first and sets things up well for the curious who wish to venture further. I had a good time, so I’m down for another fling. I’ll be reviewing, hell, I have no idea how many more of these there are. I think there’s at least one more. I’m looking forward to it.
Plot Autopsy
Plot Autopsy
- We meet our heroine, who likes to break old men’s fingers and steal their Flair.
- She meets… this other guy, who Unified Field something, and they kinda team up
- They sneak into the bunker, where there’s a shit-ton of Nazis as well as good army guys
- Like, the machine isn’t there tho, and the planes are inbound with the bombs
- So they Nickolas Cage up some leaps of logic to find hidden passages and shit
- And they find the other machine but it’s got a fat guy wrapped up in it who shoots lightning
- They end the movie setting us up for the sequel. Although, wasn’t this a sequel? A trilogy?
Zombie Description
Zombie Description
Well, these are Outpost zombies, which means they’re Nazi zombies, which means they’re mostly indestructible and really into stabbing the shit out of the people they kill. Very much like… fuck, what’s that other one with the Snowmobile worship… fuck! Anyway, these are vicious killer zombies who don’t really want to eat you or have any interest in you brain. They just want to make you dead. Hopefully by stabbing you 139 times while you’re held down on the table.
Where the money went
Where the money went
So… this was a pretty good movie. And the money went into making a pretty good movie. This is the second of the series, I think, so they know what they’re doing. The firefights looked right, the massacres looked about as right as a massacre can, the script… well… meandering is a nice word. But ultimately, once I stopped giving a shit about WHY and just settled back to watch, well, you can tell they knew what they were doing here. This is a professional take on an unprofessional idea. I mean, I think the Outpost premise itself is kinda… it’s kinda fucked up. And depending on what day it is, I either approve or disapprove. But that approval of general concept aside, this is a fun movie. They did well.
Best Weapon
Best Weapon
The fire extinguisher makes a great cameo here, as well does the metal pipe. Or maybe it’s just a really stout wooden club. But what it comes down to, and what the entire movie comes down to, is that if you’re willing to take some damage and you’re really enthusiastic about dishing it out, attacking someone with an automatic weapon isn’t off the table simply because all you have is a knife. Or a fist. Once again, I gotta give the best weapon… well, I was going to say human nature, but then I remembered the zombie beating down the soldiers with a potatoe masher hand grenade. I really loved the irony of using a high-explosive anti-personnel device to club individual soldiers to death. Bravo.
Can I get a hand?
Can I get a hand?
No, not really. See, the Outpost thing is all about their own take on zombies. These are Nazi zombies, a niche that allows them to make up an entirely separate line of rules and such. So no, there’s not much actual tradition in the Romero or Lucio sense, but there is a separate, life-of-it’s-own mythos that’s being written right before our eyes.
That was new!
That was new!
I have to rant a bit about those rings. I fucking love metal, and “unpowered” machines- I also want (I’m not sure why, but I do want one) a 3rd Reich typewriter. But I would totally settle for one of those rings. Preferably not with a swastika, too. Like, well, I guess a skull is pretty cliché. Lemme get back to you. But they’re cool. The rest of the movie? Well, not much of it was new. This was a rip of all the greats. In my review notes I called out some of the influences I picked up on, watch it yourself and I’m sure bits of this and that will remind you of other, greater movies. Like I said- Steal from the best.
Review Notes
Review Notes
Jesus, that was a huge dab hit. A good slug of gold sugar wax dipped into some shredded parmesan cheese-looking shit… whoooo! That went up FAST! Can’t stop coughing!
Matador… Camels… huh?
Paraguay.
Smoking is gross.
Dominoes? Little Cube is applicable here.
Old man is really confused.
“I think I’m your niece.” Oh… what the fuck?
She’s a Nazi-hunter! And she’s a finger-breaker.
Oh, shit… she’s mean.
“You give me Klousner, and I don’t smother you with a fucking pillow.”
Wow. She backed down with that.
A map! With a red circle!
Oh! There’s a secret!
“The Reich of a thousand years has not been hiding from the likes of you. It’s just been waiting in the shadows.”
This… this is way better than I thought it would be. I expected Assylum, but this is…
Oh! Secret Nazi Decoder Ring! Gets better and better.
Now we’re watching, well, I mean… we’re watching other people watching a military raid on helmet cam or something, and there’s a really old guy who looks like one of the Elders from Underworld.
I *think* they’re going into the same bunker as the first movie?
Are we watching the first movie? Like, is this an Ender’s Shadow kinda thing? Fucking A if so!
AH!! Shit!! Startled! Yeah, we’re watching the watching of the first movie. Or, like, the actions of the first movie being watched…
Ok. Roll the into credits.
Lots of schematics and black and whites.
Ha! Tiny little car! Clown car!
It’s our girl, being searched for papers…
Marius?
Is a drinker.
She’s looking for… yeah, the first movie.
Oh. A new character.
“You look old.”
Mini-magnets. Unified field theory.
“This is real. And it’s for all the marbles.”
Really shaky bit pretty good footage of combat…
And a dude with a lot of red on him…
Some idiot following blood-stains through dark rooms…
A child? WHAT THE!
Uh… Nazi zombies took the child? And smashed everything else?
“Looking spritely for a dead guy.”
They’re gonna work together.
Something about treatments and magnets and stuff.
Photograph of an electromagnetic field. That’s… growing?
And if the Nazi’s are in the electromagnetic field, they can’t be harmed? I think?
Enter… US troops?
“Illegal chemical weapons?” What a twat.
Hmm… He had a kidney stolen? I think?
Arguing about resources…
Lemonc? Is that the guy’s name?
I want one of those cars.
Oh, the car went into the field… You fucked!
Yeah, kinda feeling the mushrooms a bit.
Looks like the militia camp is getting overrun, So they head in?
Tracers going all over the place, Nazi zombies beating men to death with potatoe grenades…
And stealing the bodies.
Well, it’s nice to have an AK. And I’d go the other way.
She wats to go inward still. Suicidal!
Dead bodies all over the place. Special forces.
With an EMP.
So much smoke and fog…
Burning TANKS? And immaculate purses? What went down here?
Oh. There’s red all over that wall.
Bathroom… Rubber Ducky, you’re the one… you make playtime lots of fun!
Creepy old record player…
“At first it was something I thought all families did; travel around South America looking for old guys.”
Uh… is she having an Out, Damn Spot moment?
Or just following bloody foot prints?
Oh, shit! Nazi zombie!
So, turns out there’s like, a platoon hiding in the same farmhouse area as a bunch of Nazi Zombies, and suddenly it’s one hell of a rout, and soldiers are dying and no matter how many times you shoot a Nazi Zombie, it doesn’t matter. They’re hella fast and strong and love stabbing shit.
Oh, gotta set off the EMP…
Or not.
Or yes?
Uh… lots of blue lightening go everywhere
The zombies… now are being affected by the bullets.
The zombies are down. So is the scientist person.
The soldiers are being assholes.
Claiming you’re journalists…
Oh. Damn. These guys aren’t fucking around.
Everyone is being a jerk to everyone.
Oh, shit. Number 2 is always a killer.
Mr. Wallace.
“You’re in the fucking Army now, boy.”
“Lucky me.”
Is it just me being morbid and gross, or is it unempathetic, or unselfpreserving, but I have the opportunity, I’m gonna search the corpses of a bunch of dead Nazi zombies. Who knows that interesting historical shit they might have on them? Besides, collecting ears is a thing, isn’t it?
So, she’s got a bottle, some M&M’s, and a pistol. Not a bad haul.
Uh… like… in the tent… there’s argument….
Oh! The Spook wants to nuke!
Ok, she’s into stripping corpses too. I like her style.
Oh! Shit! Paratrooper! Are we alive or are we dead?
And… where the fuck is she? The burnt-out land of misshapen playground rejects?
I think I missed something. Where the fuck is she?
Oh! There’s nazi zombies! And soldiers. I think we’re going to see a massacre.
How did she?
Ok, they’re running away! And leaving his notebook!
Who the fuck are those two?
Oh! The leader Nazi zombie!
He’s got an injection…
Oh, that’s gross. Puked black all over itself.
Oh! Shit! The Nazi commander found the notebook!
Oh, they’re not being nice to each other.
So, you know, either complete their mission or they get nuked. I have *never* encountered this scenario.
“Fucking nonsense.” I agree.
Well shot nonsense though, I must insist.
Oh! Shit! It IS the bunker from the first movie!
So… there are no good plans. Everyone is improvising.
There’s blood all over the ground. That’s not good.
Thick cable.
Get to the controls! Ok, yeah, should have been chopper.
In the bunker…the land of crouching down?
Neat light effects really coming through on my wife’s new computer.
Blood on the walls…
Oh, shit! That’s no bigger than a… Swamp Rat?
“Another proud day for military intelligence, that’s what I say!”
Hieroglyphics around the walls…
The machine is missing?
This guy is totally Nick Caging this explanation.
Bunch of runes and shit?
This is turning into Stargate type shit.
“These notes are the work of a man way past sanity.”
So… uh… Like… no-one noticed there was a zombie hanging out and then it attacked the army guy who saved the girl and then, like, the zombie dragged him into a… chamber? Of some sort? And then the army guy blew them both up with a grenade? I really don’t know. Everyone acting all traumatized and shit.
Wait… is that the bald guy from StarGate? That’s too funny if it is…
Oh! The bad guys are a mile away from the command post.
“Nah, it’s cunningly hidden down there along with Elvis and the fucking Easter Bunny.”
So, army guys want to bounce.
I want crackers. Lots and lots of crackers.
I guess the army guys aren’t bouncing.
Searching for a hidden something.
“And don’t forget to leave a trail of breadcrumbs in case you get lost.” I’d eat them.
So, still can’t find it. More arguing.
It’s like… figure out how to close this movie… you can tell they’re trying to.
Uh… more Nick Cage logic…
Hidden levers, wheels, a secret room…
But did you find the thing?
Something about “Muppetting the parachute”?
Elevator down for a really long time.
Into a hidden Nazi lair!
I want buttery crackers.
Uh… corpses adorning the walls? What the fuck?
A whole pie of dead people?
Oh! There’s zombies down there! And live, like… I don’t know.
What the fuck?
Some cackling crone in a Nazi uniform…
She smells them!
This is a witch story.
Automatic weapons versus a witch.
And her Nazi zombies. And… Nazi scissors?
Now we’re in the control room?
Something about a pressure cooker.
Overload the system, create an EMP.
Not fair? Safety venting? Clever machine?
Blue lights?
“The system is well engineered. It doesn’t want me to kill it.”
Now… sending them away?
A dial? A fucking hammer? Anything?
And- watch yourself? Contradictory.
I like his ability to talk reason to machinery.
Getting kinda tired of the cackling.
Not sure why this soldier refuses to take a shot…
What the? It’s like an Indiana Jones temple…
There’s a huge corpse tangled up in the machine?
And then… kicked the thing, made it work…
So much of the lightning special effect… Uh… kinda… Ghostbusters to a degree here. Only steal from the best!
So… the machine is not broken? I have no idea what’s going on.
Are the zombies mortal now or not? It’s like the EMP revived them or something?
Now I’m feeling a certain Mummy energy to it.
Oh! The fire extinguisher!
Is that guy the machine? What the fuck is he talking about? Stop the core?
Is he cutting hydraulics?
He’s talking about unified field theory as if it involved crossing the streams.
Upstairs, the zombies are still kicking ass.
Uh… a flare got launched?
Holding all nukes?
That’s a lot of zombies.
“The world is vibration particles, nothing more.” I love it!
“Love power is the demon of men.”
This guy is making zero sense.
Unless… the ring?
Zombies still kicking ass wherever they go…
She’s almost got the key figured out… and a zombie boss shows up and shoots her?
I that the guy she’s been looking for?
“It was an accident. You live, you learn.”
This is turning into needle-torture-porn. Softcore, so far, but…
I think this guy practices his Jason Statham. He’s pretty good at it.
So many Nazi zombies…
An injection…
The machine-guy uses his lightning again…
He and the Nazi captain yell “ARGH” at each other…
He drops the ring, she shuts off the machine
All the zombies die. Yay.
Or… wait! The zombie commander is still alive!
Or, well, was. Until she did him in with a fire extinguisher.
Planes inbound?
She… took the Iron Man Lightsaber.
“I hope you’re both decent runners ‘cause this is gonna be close, folks.”
Oh, shit! She gave the thing to the guy and he shot her and the army guy. Double cross!
And he makes a run for it while she’s… bleeding and screaming a lot.
Some sort of secret rendezvous…
The bad end Nazi person…
Really setting this up for a sequel. Really going Underworld with it.
————End Transmission——————–
Introduction
Introduction
I just watched a documentary about mushrooms and how we build up tolerances to them, same as just about anything else. Which makes sense, because lately I’ve found myself eating 2-4 grams in a go and not really getting that Whoah that makes it so worthwhile.
I’ve been living a more calm and thoughtful life, and it’s true, my wife and I have not gotten into a fight since I began eating mushrooms all day, every day, but I’m thinking back on the large handful I ate before sitting down to do this review tonight and how it seemed sort of like the size of the handfuls I used to eat when I was younger and drugs were rare and consumed quickly when available…
I ate a decent handful of mushrooms tonight. 3.5 grams to be exact. I know I’ve eaten twice, maybe three times that before, but that was a different cosmonaut in a different time. Today, that eight of an ounce felt large in my hand. I ate it thinking “I’m going to be so disappointed if these don’t kick in hard.” and by that, I mean that I want to smell the wires shorting out, I want to smell the toast.
The documentary, which I watched as I finished the handful of mushrooms, informed me that yes, we do build up a tolerance to mushrooms. It may last as short a duration as a day or two, but it’s proven that if you trip on Saturday, you’re going to need to eat a whole lot more on Sunday if you want to feel anything.
Which makes me feel a lot better about the sneaking suspicion that I’ve been having that the mushrooms we’ve grown actually aren’t psychedelic (blue bruising and familiar flavor be damned) since I’ve been eating large quantities multiple times a day and then driving around, completely fine, completely forgotten that I’d eaten any at all.
I’ve been worrying that all these mushrooms I’ve grown are just non-trippy normal mushrooms. But no, rather, my “eating large quantities multiple times per day” has actually just resulted in waste and the occasional stomach ache, but the glowing trip that’s felt out of reach… is actually out of reach. So.
Now comes the fucking impossible thing for an addict. I have to abstain from the drug long enough so that taking the drug has the powerful effect on me. This does NOT compute with Instant Gratification Boy. I’m looking over at the mason jars thinking “What will happen if I eat 10 grams? I’ve already eaten 3 and a half and nothing’s really popping.”
So, the answer is Yes, you do build up a sort of tolerance to psilocybin. When you eat mushrooms, the psilocybin turns to psilocin in your body, and then your brain takes in the psilocin and you trip. However, your brain taking on that psilocin starts a sort of “do-over” timer that ineffectualizes future psilocin that rubs up on your brain and wants to get funky. Somehow, either your brain blocks it, or just ignores it or something.
So you have to wait a while- a day or so- before your brain is ready to take in more psilocin. I… have been bathing my brain in liquid psilocin for the past few months. My wife and I were talking about it a couple days ago- how many days of taking mushrooms is this for me? I think it’s over a month, maybe two. So, yes. It would make sense that I’m eating cereal-bowl sized portions of mushrooms and not feeling them kick at all.
The hard reality of this is that I’m going to have to start taking a day or even… two… off in between eatings, if I want to feel anything funky or catch the glow. However, it does seem to me that daily consumption has a sort of minor benzo effect on me, where I’m a wound a little less tight, I’m prone to listen a bit more, I’m finding myself giving strangers the benefit of doubt… Shit.
I can’t finish that sentence and it doesn’t look right. And, for the record, I can feel something mushroom occurring. My face feels strange and numb, and I feel like I’m smelling something that isn’t there- I’m not hallucinating a smell, but my nose feels like there’s something pungent. Have you ever sniffed a curry or chili or even mustard that literally hurt the inside of your nose? If not, you don’t live anywhere near your full potential.
But those of you who know what I mean… yes, even some of you cheese-sniffers; my nose feels like it is smelling something sharp. It fucking rained. Finally. So hopefully we’ll be able to get out into the woods and test the new shot-guns that we bought at the gun show. I gave all our pumpkins to the neighbors, so we’ll have to get more.
Yes, I am aware that I have spent this time talking about A: my overindulgence in hallucinogens, and then didn’t even bother to segue into a babble about firearms. America, do you feel safe tonight? I jest, but I ask the same question when your door knocks and it’s late at night and you’re not expecting anyone. How does that feel? Do you just ignore it?
This is what my wife does, under the party line of “I didn’t invite them here, I don’t have to go talk to them.” which I agree makes perfect logical sense, but my perspective is that already, too many people in the neighborhood think I’m either strange or crazy, so since most of the people knocking on our door are actually our neighbors, it makes sense to open up and talk to them. I just keep the pistol hidden behind my back.
But like I was saying with the documentary, I’m going to have to go a couple of days without eating any mushrooms. I feel a bit of embarrassment and disgrace writing this, but I do admit to feeling a certain dependency regarding them. I don’t want to experience a day without mushrooms, if I could be experiencing that day with mushrooms.
The documentary did go into how people who micro dose (which was my full intention from the start) take doses every other, or every third day… I think I’m going to follow through with the making of capsules, and taking them on some kind of “two a week” regime. But to be honest, I do feel like the “large quantities multiple times a day” approach does work, in that I’m feeling… something… it’s minor, I admit, but I am feeling something off that eighth.
I suppose the voice of reason must get acknowledged, where if you’re “feeling something” off of an eighth, you’re taking the fucking drug wrong. Strange to consider that simply eating it whenever you want might help navigate the daily, but it negates the ability to fly if you want. I really don’t want to go days without taking any. Fuck, the addict is strong in this one.
Were this that movie about emotions in the little girl, my addiction would be a sickly green goth character with toadlike qualities who could, at any moment, secrete enough glue-like cement out onto everything they touch that it all comes to a stop and everyone else has to negotiate with them in order for them to release the counter-toxin that frees everything up again. Fuck, does that make any sense?
I think I’m traumatized by the zombie-salamander in last night’s movie. Does *that* make any sense? I’m hungry but not for anything in particular. It’s like having untethered munchies floating free around you continuously. Big balloons that fight you for food. Kind of like that The Prisoner show. I really want movie-theater popcorn.
Outpost: Black Sun “The year is 1945, the closing stages of WW2, and a German scientist by the name of Klausener is working on a frightening new technology that has the power to create an immortal Nazi army. Flash forward to present day, and a NATO task force is hurriedly deployed to Eastern Europe, where a sinister enemy appears to be mercilessly killing everything in its path. But this is no ordinary foe.” I like it.
I like the whole “this was what happened then, and now this is the result”. Very scientific method. I’m really looking forward to the NATO task force. I’m imagining Airsoft Guns and $37 worth of second-hand camouflage.
I’m still hungry and I want something crunchy, dammit! It is amazing what happens when you cut added sugar out of your diet. 1 week later and eating anything processed, no matter how rudimentary… if it’s got sugar and comes in a wrapper, it’s mind-numbingly mouth-seducingly good.
Imagine how unproductive the world would be if caffeine only worked if you’d gone a couple of days without coffee? Or how healthy the world would be if alcohol was only able to get you drunk twice a week, and on non-consecutive days at that? If all drugs were like this, addiction would be impossible, and people would have to find something to do for the other days that they couldn’t use effectively.
I do believe the vast majority of them would get jobs of some sort, if only to ensure that they had funding for drugs when the tolerance had wound down again. I wish I had a meter that would tell me when my brain was ready to accept another full dose of psylocibin without muting the effects. Is there an app for that? Why not?
But I also don’t want to have to do cuts and sticks and needle pricks and shit, the way diabetics have to. I’m also not getting something sub-dermally implanted if there’s some bit that sticks through my skin. Phobia: getting that protrusion thing stuck on something accidentally and ripping the whole thing out. Even half out. Hell, that’d probably be worse.
Talking about things being worse, I believe there is an entire franchise line of these Outpost movies. I know I reviewed… I think it was the first of them. I hope this is the sequel? I may write this all off as uninspired drivel, but I still want to consume it correctly. What was it that my wife was suggesting we watch backwards? I can’t remember- Oh. Yes I can.
She wanted to go see the newest Halloween at the drive-in, and neither of us have ever seen any of them. So she proposed that we watch this “last” one, and then watch them backwards by release date from there. I love my wife, but in some ways she’s fucking crazier than me.
So, I will say this. Tolerance be damned, I think that sheer numbers are able to overwhelm the resistance. Although, if I ate an eighth and this is all I’m feeling, it’d probably require a half ounce or so to really kick this up a notch. I don’t want to eat that many. Yuck. I’m gonna have to take some days off. “Gonna start tomorrow…” Like the Misfits album says… “If you don’t know this song, what the fuck are you doing here?”