Outcast

When Mary and her teenage son, Fergal, move to yet another new home, it soon becomes clear they live their lives on the run, hiding from someone or something, terrified of being found. Their hunter, Cathal, soon picks up the trail. Intent on tracking Mary and Fergal, he will go to any lengths to succeed in his quest, often using dark arts to aid him. Mary’s only defence is to use an ancient form of her own magic to protect her only son. When local residents begin to be brutally murdered by an unknown life force, the sense of fear escalates. Is Cathal the beast responsible for the killing? Or is it the beast that he is trying to destroy?

Urban Beasts. Outcast is directed by Colm McCarthy and he co-writes the screenplay with his brother Tom. It stars Kate Dickie, Niall Bruton, Hanna Stanbridge, James Nesbitt, Ciarán McMenamin, Josh Whitelaw, Therese Bradley and James Cosmo. Music is by Giles Packham and cinematography by Darran Tiernan. Mary (Dickie) and her teenage son, Fergal (Bruton), are being tracked by Cathal (Nesbitt), a man using dark arts to achieve his quest. But why is he after them? Can Mary's own witchcraft skills keep them protected? And how come the Scottish housing estate that is their latest home has suddenly started suffering brutal murders? How nice to find an independant British horror bringing something refreshing to the genre, that of the occult in a modern day housing estate - and a depressingly bleak one at that. McCarthy and his team fill out their picture to a backdrop of urban decay, with narrative splinters involving doomed love, a battle of the black arts and a beastie secret to will out. There's no rushing going on here, pic is purposely paced slowly, the writing giving us important information in increments. We are only given partial anatomy glimpses of what is comitting the bloody carnage. The key characters have interesting stories of themselves, with two fractured family dynamics at work, while the delve into cryptic rituals and arcane magic as a weapon makes for fascinating viewing. The big reveal of the perpretrator is something of a let down, for although we are introduced to a new looking creature, the effects work is not great - leaving us hankering for a less is more approach. But it's a minor itch, with a cast on form (does Nesbitt and Dickie even know how to be rubbish in anything anyway), and the colour filters set at social realism, Outcast is a surprise winner of a horror movie. 7/10