MONSTER MOVIE OF THE WEEK: OUTLANDER (2008)

OUTLANDER (2008)

Director: Howard McCain

Genre: Action/Sci-Fi/Historical Epic

THE MOVIE

Outlander is an intriguing mix of genres. It combines sci-fi and action with the historical epic, which in itself is interesting and deserves a rental. It is like Lord of the Rings meets Predator, or more accurately Alien3 meets Beowulf. It very much resembles some early concepts for the third Alien movie, which was to have Ripley and the xenomorph crash land on a medieval planet. Here, James Caviezel plays an interstellar soldier who crash lands into 8^th Century Norway, along with a dangerous alien stowaway, called a Moorwen. There are many connections here with the Beowulf story, as this movie was originally supposed to have been an adaptation of that famous English poem, but with the introduction of science fiction elements, it evolved into something else. Nevertheless, you will find various plot points and character names kept as homage, or at least the literary equivalent of a fanwank.

There are some very cool genre nods in the casting as well. You might remember the always-raspy John Hurt from when that creature that popped through his chest in Alien. Hellboy’s Ron Perlman makes an appearance as a rival leader, although he looks strangely like a biker. And he is very tentatively sporting some kind of Irish brogue (or something).

Why smoking and canoeing don't mix.

THE MONSTER/EFFECTS

The somewhat Avatary monster in Outlander is given an interesting bit of backstory. Human beings apparently spread to its planet and wiped out all of the Moorwen population. The one that hitched a ride on the doomed ship was possibly the last of its kind. We are treated to an interesting montage of these creatures systematically being wiped out and the movie clearly presents this as a kind of genocide and leads us to sympathize with them to a degree and even implies that they are semi-sentient.

The Moorwen were designed by Patrick Tatopolous, and recall his work on both Godzilla and Pitch Black. The face and head resemble the American Godzilla but the sharp and skeletal body and multi-ended whip tails recall the creatures from the latter movie. The monsters are given the rather neat effect of being bioluminescent, a very eerie and cool effect as they will suddenly light up in da-glo shades of electric blue and magenta. Other than looking cool, I’m not sure what purpose this is supposed to serve.

Presumably not a stealth predator on its homeworld.

BEST SEQUENCE

The last quarter of the movie is pretty solid as our team of heroes descends into the very hellish lair of the Moorwen, complete with lava and stacks of decaying body parts.

SEQUELS

None! This movie tanked at the box-office, as it was only released for about a week with no marketing support. Hopefully, it will find a life for itself on home video.

I'd like my Moorwen extra crispy, please.

DVD AVAILABILITY

On DVD, with lots of deleted scenes and a commentary track. Blu-Ray should be out in the near future and I have a feeling this will be a good one to see HD. Put it in your Netflix queue!

SEE ALSO:

Alien 3 (1992), Predator (1987) Avatar (2009)

THE TRAILER