#worms wriggles

Marathon

Has nothing on

Depression's

Never-ending war

But it's altogether

Impossible to fight and

Run at the same time

While recognized for playing Frank Castle in The Punisher: Warzone (2008) and Titus Pullo in Rome (2005), I'd like to draw your attention to a lesser-known indie film; Outpost (2008).

In war-torn Eastern Europe, a mysterious businessman hires a group of mercenaries on a routine mission to protect him not knowing of the long-hidden secret that lies there.

-IMDB

Made on a shoestring budget by devoted Scottish couple Arabella Croft and Kieran Parker, Outpost features some of the best character actors America, England and Northern Ireland had to offer at the time.

Essentially, the plot boils down to Nacht Der Untoten from Call of Duty: World at War.

Ok, that's not fair.

Having picked up the trail of a super-secret Nazi experiment to produce super soldiers, shady English businessman Julian Wadham hires Ray and Co to tag along with him to a hidden bunker in war-torn Eastern Europe.

Arriving and opening the bunker, the team discovers exactly what Julian was hoping to find: Die Glocke.

However, upon trying to dismantle the machine so Julian can copy it and sell it to the highest bidder, the corpses of the Nazi experimenters begin to rise as night descends, leading to a fight to the death between Ray and his team and the reanimated SS troupe.

This film does not end on a happy note.

Despite the tiny budget, the sparse CGI holds up even 15 years later, the practical effects are insane, the set design, costume design and makeup effects are all amazing, the actors relish their roles and have metric tonnes of fun with them and the zombies... Menacing, unkillable, determined— truly scary. Not to mention the plot and central mystery being both interesting and tightly written! Did I mention the atmosphere?? It's grim, it's dark, it's blood in your face.

It goes without saying that Ray is the stand-out amongst the cast as grizzled mercenary DC, but Julian Wadham as Hunt, Richard Brake as Prior and Michael Smiley as McKay give their all in this excellent Nazi-zombie horror; all of whom are blasting out great performances elsewhere today.

While mostly unknown, the film was picked up and distributed and would go on to spawn a pair of sequels; one of which, a direct continuation in-fact, delved deeper into the mystery of the bunker and Die Glocke housed within, but both were ultimately panned by audiences and critics alike. Outpost: Black Sun— check it out (the other one isn't that great...)

So if you like horror, indie horror or have a Nazi-zombies fix that Call of Duty can no longer scratch, put this on and have a ball; it'll be the best 90 minutes you'll ever spend (just don't ask me where the hell you'll find it...)

#2 - Mom

There were many things beaten into me. Not physically, never physically, but verbally— mantras wrapped in barbed wire. I know it was mostly for my own good, yet of all you taught, the one thing you forgot to mention was that sometimes it's ok to say 'I give up'.

Those three words weren't in your dictionary, so I've been going around, hanging onto all that hurts me, clinging to them like ledges, like if I let go I'll fall to my death; not because I'm stubborn, but because I don't know how to give up on something, because I was never shown that nothing bad will happen if I do.