Too much of everything

Absolutely Fantastic

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

I was looking forward to watching OUTPOST: BLACK SUN, having enjoyed the first film and being a fan of Nazi zombie films in general. However, this sequel appears to have been shot by a crew without much talent, because it's generally a mess, and a poorly-shot mess at that.The story begins promisingly as a young woman tracks down an old Nazi in Paraguay. It's great to see the veteran Michael Byrne in this minor role. However, things start slipping when she gets teamed up with an obnoxious researcher (Richard Coyle, sporting an American accent) and a team of grunts to go and investigate another Nazi menace.What this all boils down to is lots of shaky cam work as the characters run around, kill, and are killed by Nazi zombies. The villains are pretty weak here, indistinguishable from loads of other movies, and the characters are paper thin. Everything has been shot in the dark, and clumsily with it, which means the action is no better than something you'd see in the ultra low budget likes of THE ZOMBIE DIARIES: WORLD OF THE DEAD and its ilk. What could have been a strong and terrifying supernatural-themed movie turns out to be badly shot, badly scripted, and completely forgettable to boot.

Bigger is better? Well I didn't find that to be the case with "Outpost II: Black Sun". Director Steve Barker follows up his 2008 action-horror "Outpost" with this sequel which actually expands on the original's concept (Nazi, occult and experimenting) and doesn't just limit its action to the bunker. It loses its simple set-up, which was atmospheric and eerie with a ghost-like tale to its novelty, replacing it with bloodier attacks and kinetic actions where our zombie Nazi storm- troopers lumber through a warn-torn Eastern Europe. The sequel pretty much follows on from the previous feature, as a NATO task force is sent to Eastern Europe where an unstoppable killing force is murdering everything in its path. Lena a Nazi hunter is on the trail of notorious war criminal Klausener, which sees her heading to Eastern Europe where she meets up with Wallace an engineer. In all it's a okay follow up that doesn't limit itself, but adds more to the formula than simply rehashing what has gone before it. The threat isn't confined this time around and there are few surprises. Some motivations of certain players can be blurry with how the plot develops, but it did become somewhat weary the further along it went with a lazily dismal ending to cap it off. The performances are durable with Richard Coyle and Catherine Steadman in the leads, but I didn't find any of the characters, especially their support to stand out. Barker seems to replace the slow-burn suspense of the original for brutality. It might not be as rough around the edges, but the action did feel choppy and still have that repetitiveness that lingered in the original. An atmosphere is created bringing out a grim apocalyptic air and the dead zombie soldiers (which the make-up FX is strongly detailed) have a lumbering appearance that can break out into a vicious intensity. But here don't have that ghost ability to teleport and to come out of the shadows. David Gant looks creepy as the dead Nazi general Klausener.

It's as if the film-makers had been watching the first movie and learned from their mistakes and decided on doing everything different and better this time. And the end result is not a great but a definitely watchable movie! More fun, more gore, more zombies, a better pace, better characters. This feels more like a movie that knew what it was doing! It's being more a straightforward horror flick, involving zombies and Nazi's. It's simple but ultimately also effective.Another thing that had been improved is its look. It's not as low budget looking as its predecessor and simply has a good look and atmosphere to it, that suits the movie its story. It also definitely was a better choice to let this movie take place at more than just one location. It also helps to give the movie some more pace and to help to keep things more fresh and interesting.Horror/zombie fans will definitely be more pleased with this movie than with its predecessor. Not that its being the best the genre has to offer but it at least offers plenty of fun and some gore. For them this movie is definitely being a recommendable one but to most others it remains nothing more than just a very average genre entry, that doesn't have an awful lot to offer for them in it.6/10 http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/

Although i enjoyed this film, i must admit it does not have the spirit of the original and am hoping the 3rd in series will make up for it. In the original outpost, the Nazi's were intimidating without needing to be on screen much. They appeared when least expected or if expected appeared in glimpses out of corner of eye or in reflections until they ripped your head off suddenly and with menace (can you rip off someones head in an un-menacing way?)Much as the follow ups to Jaws franchise, outpost 2 seemed to assume that now the viewers have seen the killer, they will not be happy unless they see it a lot more, and although the suspense and limited viewing of the shark with occasional jump out of seat moments as the film progressed is what made it such a hit, follow up films ignored this fact completely and made no suspense and showed the shark so often that there were no jump out of seat bits, and unfortunately outpost two producers like many decent horror sequels have fallen into the same trap. The Nazi zombie army seem to be just that, an army rather than spiritual entities, patrolling their bunker rather than haunting it, attacking rather than just appearing out of nowhere and killing before disappearing again, totally ignoring what made the first film a surprise hit and not trying to scare at all.I have given it a score of 7 mainly for keeping same character base and attempting to follow up on the original, but in fairness to reality it probably should have been a 6. I really enjoyed the 1st oupost, and much as I liked the idea of a follow up it was not as enjoyable as anticipated. I can only hope that the producers of the currently in production outpost 3 look back at the original, realize what made it so enjoyable and work again along those lines rather than as anticipated make same mistake they did with the follow up and make just another Nazi zombie film with an OK story and no scares.