The only bad thing about the Cinemax thriller Outcast, is that it’s so damn good that people won’t tune in to check it out. Whether it’s because of preconceptions about genre, an aversion to quality, or just the fact that audiences want to shut their brains off- people don’t watch the best stuff. That’s why nobody’s ever seen half the Best Picture movies, and it’s why shows like Outcast, Legion, and Crashing fail.
Unlike a lot of other “horror” shows on the air, there are some truly creepy and sometimes downright scary moments in the Robert Kirkman-produced drama. However, despite the demons and the exorcisms, Outcast is a detective story both meticulously written and precisely shot. It’s put together like a puzzle, one deliberate and exact piece at a time… Often hiding clues in plain sight (a huge I Want to Believe poster in one of the opening shots, but I’ll come back to that) to keep the viewer glued to the screen at any given time.
Over the course of the first season, Outcast tells the story of two men battling demons both internal and external in the sleepy town of Rome, West Virginia. The main character Kyle Barnes (played by Almost Famous‘ Patrick Fugit) grew up in Rome, raised by a single mother who succumbed to a violent and abusive possession when he was younger. Flashbacks show her stalking him through the house like an animal, from the shadows, knocking him around and dragging him by his hair into the pantry closet Carrie-style. Years later, Kyle has moved into his mother’s old house after a domestic violence incident involving his wife and daughter. Here he meets up with Reverend Anderson, an older and somewhat wiser man, who tells him he has been fighting these “demons” for years. He is the kind of preacher that believes he is one of God’s holy warriors, and who has a Friday night poker game every week with the mayor, the sheriff, and the fire chief. Like Anderson, Outcast holds its cards close to its chest the entire game. From the first episode, there is very little exposition or set up, instead the writers keep the focus on the characters themselves as things happen around them.
Outcast doesn’t rely on gimmicks, special effects, or flashy camera work like so many others do these days to stand out from the pack. Instead it is expertly crafted in a minimalist style, dolling out scraps of info here and bits of clues there. It’s part detective noir, part character-driven horror/thriller, Outcast reminds me of a scarier version of Netflix’s Bloodline or HBO’s The Leftovers, operating on many levels at the same time.
Most shows these days spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the audience is following along. Outcast correctly assumes that most people can follow a plot without laying things out every step of the way… And it works extremely well in this case. The writers hook us in the first episode with a possession case that goes right for the gut- (SLIGHT SPOILER) – a young boy named Joshua nearly chews his finger off absentmindedly under the influence of some evil entity. When the Reverend and Kyle finally arrive to try and help the boy, the demon recognizes Barnes, calling him the Outcast and asking about his mother (who has been in a vegetative state for decades). Along the way, Kyle is bitten and some of his blood seeps into the boy’s mouth, causing him to convulsive and react violently, eventually spewing forth some kind of swirling black oil demon that dissipates into the air.
It sets up a very compelling mystery right from the beginning… What exactly is going on in Rome, and why are so many people showing signs of demonic possession? And what the hell is “the Merge”? Some kind of Demon Apocalypse?
While the Reverend and Kyle Barnes play Demonic Hardy Boys, Kyle’s adopted sister Megan struggles to balance family life with an ever-increasing level of insanity in town. The sheriff follows a different set of clues following an arson that may or may not be connected to the rest of the town’s goings-on. Meanwhile a mysterious stranger shows up in Rome who seems to know a little more about the Merge than he might be letting on. All of these side-plots and interconnected story lines weave seamlessly through one another at the hands of shrewd and talented writers who have so far been able to ratchet up the suspense with every new episode.
As things near a boiling point this Friday night, Kyle and the Reverend must keep their eyes on the goal as distractions come at them from every angle. “The nameless, the numberless” descend on Rome for the Merge, and the stakes have never been higher for our two heroes. As they piece together more of the mystery surrounding the demons in their midst, the true nature of the intruders themselves comes into question. Are they really Satan’s minions, or are they perhaps invaders from some other place? (Back to the I Want to Believe poster in the opening shots of the show…)
If you haven’t check out Outcast for one reason or another, it’s not too late. All episodes are available on Cinemax’s streaming app, and it looks like iTunes has the first few as well. As usual, there are less upstanding ways to watch, only a few short Google searches away. Give it a shot, if you are a fan of good drama and like a few thrills, you won’t be sorry. I’ve already re-watched the first episodes and realized how many things I missed the first time because I didn’t have the other puzzle pieces that come later. Cinemax liked it so much they ordered a second season before the first episode even aired… I agree wholeheartedly.
I’m talking about real fear, like terror, horror, sheer “f^ck fight, FLIGHT!” kind of jump-out-of-your-shoes afraid. Where the fear touches a primordial place in our basest instincts. Where most people pee a little and do stupid things like try and smuggle a dangerous organism through ICC quarantine.
I remember when I was a kid, I was afraid a lot. The whole jumping at shadows in my room at night routine, pulling the covers up over my head to hide from the monsters I was absolutely sure were hanging out in my closet or under my bed. When I got older I found that I’d spent so much time afraid, that I learned to like it. I sought it out. As young as 9 years old, in 1986 (yep, I’m an ancient historical fossil), when I picked up a magazine on a shelf at the store. I’d never seen anything like what I saw on the cover of that glossy book. You remember back when they used to do “behind the scenes” of movies in magazine form? I do! This one was for the movie Aliens, by James Cameron… And I think I fell in love with the most terrifying thing I’d ever seen. I hadn’t seen the original, I wasn’t even old enough to see either, but I was totally obsessed. I remember pouring over the pages of that “Movie Book” and just getting lost in a world I had no idea existed: adult science fiction. I grew up watching StarWars, Aliens seemed like the next logical step.
Now picture if you will: a family of five gathered in the living room with the lights turned down on a rainy Saturday afternoon in 1986 to watch a VHS tape… The movie on the agenda for this happy little gathering? Ridley Scott’s sci-fi/horror masterpiece, Alien. There was no commonsensemedia.org back then, no imdb.com to look up what they were getting into, only the begging pleas of a 9 year-old boy. It was epic. When that facehugger dropped from the ceiling halfway through the movie, I spontaneously dropped my Pink Panther stuffed animal on my little sister’s terrified head.
I literally cannot believe they let 3 kids under 10 watch Alien. Ahh the 80s.
There’s something about H.R. Giger’s design of the Alien in the movies… It’s simultaneously both terrifying and disgusting, yet also strangely beautiful. Giger had a way of turning his strange characters and paintings into erotic images with organic, sometimes phallic designs… They’re almost impossible to turn away from, and I think that’s the part of the attraction of these nasty-looking things… They’re so different, so fascinating, that the brain wants to understand what it’s seeing. When you make a movie with the scariest creature ever made and then use nothing but low lighting, smoke and shadow… Well… You’re daring the audience to look closer on purpose. The Alien franchise, while screeching for new blood, has held up over the years as a testament to what can go right in sci-fi/horror, and what can go wrong when the studio decides it knows best (I’m looking right at you, Alien 3 and Resurrection… Even Joss Whedon’s story couldn’t save that mess).
Over the years we’ve been given differing looks into the Alien universe. From Dark Horse’s comic series to the Aliens vs Predator movies and games, none of it really held a candle to the original (2) movies. However, the Creative Assembly and SEGA Games’ 2014 release Alien: Isolation looks to have broken the decade-or-longer losing streak of failed Alien video games. In fact, Alien: Isolationknocks it out of the park.
Isolation is a direct sequel to the original Alien from 1979, and honestly, it looks EXACTLY like the movie, to a painstaking detail. From the ship designs to the old green CRT monitors and retro-tech tools, Isolation does the best adaptation I’ve ever seen in a licensed video game. There’s easter eggs and nods to everything from the “Water-Drinking-Bird” perpetual motion toys to the beeping motion trackers… But beware… There aren’t any Pulse Rifles or Loader Exo-Skeletons to give the acid-dripping Alien a stand up fight. This is not Colonial Marines, this is hide and seek, with a deadly monster.
The game picks up the mythology of Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley, who is at that point in time floating through deep-space after detonating the emergency self-destruct systems on the commercial towing vehicle she worked on. After 15 years, her ship’s “black box” has been found on the edge of known space, and as Amanda Ripley (who has been searching for answers to her mother’s disappearance) your task is to fly out to Sevastopol Station and retrieve the flight recorder.
Simple right? Wrong…
First of all, let me just say that Alien: Isolation is graphically stunning. I wanted to pause the action every five seconds and just look around at the space station’s massive interiors, ominous passageways, and dark ventilation shafts… But this is one of those games where looking at the scenery will get you impaled by an Alien tail. In a game reminiscent of Dead Space 2, where lone engineer Isaac Clarke must explore an infected space station turning on systems and diverting power in order to escape all the while battling a horde of mutated monsters, Alien does a brilliant job of breaking up the action just enough for you to catch your breath. Usually just long enough to walk through a medical lab or a docking bay and be surprised by a massive snarling creature dropping from the vent duct above you or a blank-faced android looking to smash your head into a wall.
I’ve never played a video game that had me so scared. The main reason, other than the disgusting Alien hunting me the whole time, was there is NO AUTOSAVE feature. Let me stress that point one more time. If you die, you go back to your last save that wasn’t the beginning of a new level. You’ll only learn this lesson once, trust me, but take my word for it. If you hear the chirp of the Save Game Station, don’t think, just do it. Unless the Alien is literally in the room with you, you’ll generally have enough post-load time to get to cover quickly. This left me frazzled, at the end of some levels, miles away from the nearest Save Point, hearing the thump of the Alien hitting the floor behind me, and my heart rate shot through the roof.
After one particular intense night of mid-game play, I even had to pause it to just take a deep breath… That damn thing scared me so much my heart was racing from adrenaline. Now that’s a horror game!
Even the Last of Us, even Dead Space, they only scratched the surface of what the Creative Assembly is able to achieve here. Mainly because Alien: Isolation is not a weapons-heavy blast-a-baddy Bioshock, but a sneak-around-or-get-an-embryo-in-your-chest kind of game. One of the ways they’re able to do this is through the behavior of the AI. Most stealth games, horror or not, follow the time-honored tradition of Bad Guys on Tracks. All you have to do is post up, watch the route the AI takes through the level, and adapt your play in order to sneak from one end to the other. In Isolation, the Alien is programmed to think.
Yes, think.
The level will start like this: you’ll enter a space where you need to find something to switch on or off and then get back to the elevator. It sounds so simple, and if there were no bad guys in the game you’d be able to just sprint down the corridors and get it done. However, because this is Alien: Isolation, about halfway into the first corridor, your little motion tracker will beep, and your heart will skip a beat every time. Soon you’ll hear it moving around in the vents, behind the walls, all around you. You can keep dibs on it with the tracker, but the Alien has heightened senses, so use it when it’s too close and it will find you instead. Remember what I said about how you could just sprint from one end to the other? Yeah well, you don’t ever want to sprint. Ever.
By heightened senses I mean if the Alien is standing outside the locker you’re currently hiding in, don’t pull up your tracker… The locker will be shredded with you in it. Luckily Sevastapol is teeming with lockers, tables, even tiny little cabinets for Ripley to squeeze into when the familiar rumbling of the vents becomes the terrifying thump of the Alien’s footsteps- which means it’s on the floor, and at its most dangerous.
It’s a surprisingly simple plot, coupled with all the corporate intrigue and greedy side-plots that make the Alien universe what it is. Sevastopol is damaged when you arrive, triggering a slow descent into the nearby planet’s atmosphere. As Ripley you have to crawl from cover to cover, up one side of the enormous station and down the other in order to try and A) capture/kill the Alien B) Find out what happened to your mother and C) Escape. All the while the evidence of what has transpired over the last weeks or so since the Nostromo’s flight recorder was discovered. There are bodies everywhere, some disemboweled with a detail that leaves you a little disturbed… And where there aren’t bodies there are survivors, some friendly some not.
If fear of the unknown is the big-mamma-jamma of our deepest fears, then Alien capitalizes on it at every corner. It’s a pressing feeling of dread. One that filled my entire body with chills and had me literally on the edge of my seat for almost the entire play-through. From sudden explosions that turn your simple level objectives on their head to the startling appearance of the Alien from a nearby vent, Isolation is full of scares, thrills, and just plain exhausting terror. At the beginning of the campaign I found myself only able to play for about an hour at a time before the constant adrenaline would just wear me out.
In fact, now that I think about it, Alien: Isolation is just a delivery system for adrenaline. It is, at least, on the harder settings where the AI’s distance-to-detection is significantly pushed out (meaning that on Easy the Alien doesn’t see you standing across the room, but on Hard it can spot you across huge distances if you’re not behind cover). Like lighting up a cigarette and getting your nicotine, or drinking a shot to get your alcohol, a poor soul plays Alien: Isolation to be pumped full of adrenaline, jumping at shadows, and hearing the echoing sound of “something in the vents” long after the power light has faded on their console of choice.
I picked it up for 75% off during the Playstation Holiday Sale bonanza, and after playing it I would have gladly paid full price for this masterpiece of set-piece wizardry and AI physics. Warning however, do not play this game on any lower setting the first time through, it WILL ruin the game. If the AI is turned down you can pretty much walk around the station without really getting into too much trouble… And I can see why most people would think that this is why the game is too quick and too easy.
I promise you that if you put the AI on medium or above this will be one of the most frightening games you’ve ever played, whether you’re an Alien fan or not. Bravo Creative Assembly, you made one of the best games of the new generation… Hands-down. I can’t wait to play a sequel.
Alien: Isolation is available for XBox360, Xbox1, PS3, PS4, and PC. It currently holds Game of the Year from multiple publications including PC Gamer and Kokatu.
I’m a zombie guy, always have been. Vampires are alright, werewolves eh… But zombies? Yes please! I know it’s so freakin cool to like zombies these days that it’s almost cool NOT to like them anymore… Popular culture just works that way. Popularity is like a zombie apocalypse. It’s manageable when there’s only a few of them, but as soon as you attract the attention of the horde, it’s all over. Ever since I saw George Romero‘s Dawn of the Dead years and years ago I knew that these shuffling, mindless, flesh-ripping monsters were really just a symbol of our modern society. In the good old days social commentary and satire went hand-in-hand with exploding heads and fists full of entrails.
Zombies have changed since 9/11. Now it’s all about social anxiety.
It used to be a voodoo curse or a weird green comet that reanimated dead flesh, sending it slowly in the direction of the all-nourishing brains. Now it’s all about the end of times. It’s a secret biological weapon or a mutated infection that sends our feverish husbands, wives, or kids into mysterious comas that end tragically with them gnawing on our ribcage. Now days it’s all about the system breaking down, the safety of our everyday lives being dowsed in gasoline and set on fire… And why not? We don’t need zombies to see this kind of human atrocity every day. Remember this is the same human nature that causes neighbors to stab each other over food or water during hurricanes and turns policemen into shoot-first-ask-questions-later militias…
That’s the true fear we see reflected in the images of the Walking Dead, 28 Days Later, and now, World War Z. It’s not the inevitable zombie bite that scares the crap out of me, but the way that people react to it. How fear can twist the mind into something unrecognizable. It’s the stripping-away of our morals, our rights, our comfortable sense of home and safety. The de-evolution of mankind apparently happens in the blink of an eye.
We lose our shit quick. We are a world already torn apart by unspeakable violence, disease, political unrest, and worst of all… Apathy.
This is the stage set in World War Z. A fast-paced, lean, and severely disturbing experiment in big-budget zombie movie making. No one who has read Max Brooks‘ novel seems to be pleased with the movie as far as I know… Luckily for me I haven’t read it yet. I’m still pissed at him for stealing my idea for the Zombie Survival Guide… But that was years ago. My point is this: apparently if you want to enjoy this movie you can’t be a WWZ novel fan-boy.
But I got into this movie, big time. It sucked me in from the opening credits, a montage of news footage and doomsday talk all set to a creepy, frenetic soundtrack by rock gods Muse. I also went to see it early on in the day, before my bullshit meter was filled up. It’s really the best time to see a scary movie. Most zombie movies are inherently campy, even the Walking Dead has a thick slab of cheese on top. It can’t be helped. It’s partly the gore, the make-up, the shufflin’ hordes I mentioned earlier.
World War Z side-steps the cliche by taking a few pages from Danny Boyle‘s low-budget masterpiece 28 Days Later… Which is in my opinion the scariest damn zombie flick ever made. With World War Z it’s almost as if Brad Pitt (and the studio) said, “Ok this is a great book, but let’s just use the name…” then they proceeded to make a Hollywood prequel to the Danny Boyle movie. Plagued by rewrites, bad press, and massive reshoots including an entirely new ending, this movie was destined to fail.
Fortunately the rewrites and the reshoots were a good call. Despite it’s flaws, World War Z is a solid piece of action film making. I was on the edge of my seat from the first few scenes til the credits came up at the end… And Holy Shit did I mention the zombies are scary? I mean mercilessly-vicious kind of scary? Like a flowing river of running, grabbing, chomping pack animals? These aren’t your Romero zombies baby, these suckers are more akin to wild animals infected with rabies and meth. They head-butt through glass to bite you, then on to the next person. They’re a spreading disease, not a legion of the undead.
Right away we’re introduced to Gerry Lane (Pitt), an ex-UN hot shot who wrote a controversial paper that got him an early retirement at home with the family. His comfortable little home life provides the emotional core to the movie, and co-star Mireille Enos provides a solid supporting role… Even if her part was cut down significantly. The star of AMC’s the Killing, Enos is underutilized here… (at least she isn’t Matthew Fox, who had his entire role trimmed down to two scenes and one line). The Lanes are going on a trip to Philadelphia, and that’s where they find themselves in the middle of a zombie outbreak.
The scene is perfect. Quick cuts and some shaky-cam provide a sense of forboding as the family is stuck in a traffic jam that seems to stretch on forever. Soon the station-wagon is clipped by a passing motorcycle cop, and Gerry gets out to retrieve his side mirror. The buildings seem to loom over them in the downtown traffic. It’s claustrophobic, confusing, and brilliantly shot. When an explosion further up the street a few miles raises the panic meter, another motorcycle cop drives up and ushers Gerry back into his car. He shrugs his shoulders and does just that, before one of those physically-impossible speeding vehicle effects sends the cop sailing through the air as a garbage truck goes crashing through the lane next to them, plowing through parked cars like a hot knife through zombie. Soon Gerry, sensing he needs to get the hell out of there, falls in behind the truck, like Moses and the Red Sea of Philly traffic. Before they can get clear the car is t-boned by another escaping vehicle and the family is sent reeling. As Gerry pulls his wife and kids out of the Volvo he hears a noise… Behind the screams… Some kind of terrifying animal snarl. More quick-edits of people running and panicked faces are spliced with frightening images of zombie faces. It’s a good effect. You see them in the crowd, like Gerry, and then the music comes up… And the snarls are getting closer.
Remember Philly!
In this movie there are Zombies leaping from tall buildings, crashing down with bone-crushing force, only to jump up and pounce on the nearest victim… All to spread the infection. It takes anywhere from 10 seconds to 10 minutes for people to “turn” and the lingering “how the hell does something that works that fast get through an airplane ride to disburse across the globe?” question will bug you through the whole thing. Suspend your disbelief. It’s worth it. This is one of the most suspenseful action/horror movies that has been pumped out of the Hollywood machine… And while it doesn’t do justice to the political satire and social commentary of the novel, it works none the less.
In the end, World War Z is the “scariest” zombie flick I’ve seen in years. The CGI is perfect, the story is just enough to get us from one terrific disaster scene to the next, and even though it ballooned over budget and out of control, I’m glad it made some serious money. This one deserves a sequel!
Let me tell you a quick story. While it may be one you’ve heard before, I won’t keep you long…
Not long ago, Isaac Clarke was just a clever engineer on a rescue mission to save his girlfriend. This is in the future, after the human race almost caused its own extinction by using every resource it could get its hands on. This is after the Concordance Extraction Corporation (or CEC) unveils the colossal USG Ishimura, the ship that became a symbol of mankind’s endurance and will to survive. Not only was it the biggest ship ever built, but the first “planet-cracker” as well, using gravity tethers to pop giant chunks of rock from the crust of lifeless planets. CEC, and the Ishimura were almost solely responsible for bringing humanity back from the edge of extinction and jump-starting space expansion.
Nearly a century later, our hero’s scientist girlfriend Ellie is stationed in the Ishimura‘s medical research wing when it is dispatched to CEC’s not-so-legal mining colony on Aegis IV. You see in the 26th century, the dominant religion is Unitology… A faith based on the belief that mankind was created by an alien race through the power of an all-power object known as “the marker.” This isn’t one of those flower-holding religions where you’re accosted in the airport, this is the “death is only the beginning” kind where followers adamantly believe they will be reunited with their alien architects after death and their leaders ascend to the highest levels of military, business, and government.
The Ishimura is sent to Aegis IV to retrieve “the red marker,’ an alien object which is believed to be a holy object and the source of life in the universe… However not long after the marker is discovered, the colonists start to suffer from hallucinations, outbreaks of irrational behavior, and violence. Once the Ishimura arrives at the planet and the marker is brought up from the surface, all hell breaks loose, and all communications are lost.
With religious zealots scheming to bring about the “evolution” of mankind, greedy corporations who are only after what they can exploit, and a REALLY gross alien virus that reanimates dead tissue and turns your dearly departed into twisted monsters called Necromorphs… It’s up to you to help Isaac Clarke and his suspiciously gun-like engineering tools to save the universe.
Welcome to Dead Space… Welcome to science fiction horror gaming at it’s best… Welcome to a silent universe, where new planets are always lifeless, and where only the scuffling of razor-sharp claws in the ventilation ducts is there to keep you glued to your controller at 1:45 in the morning. I’m talking NASTY critters here, the kind your girlfriend is going to hate this game for. The kind that have to have their arms and legs blown off to really slow them down at all. The kind that send you screaming into controller-throwing frenzies when the limbless corpse of your digital hero goes tumbling through a darkened corridor for the fifth time in a row.
This is also really fun.
I haven’t finished Dead Space 3 yet, EA‘s latest installment in the blockbuster, multi-platform franchise released last week on PS3, Xbox 360, and PC, but that’s because I’m deliberately going slow. Normally I cruise through Dead Space games, including the original, the sequel, the spin-off Dead Space: Extraction, and even the two animated movies (available on Netflix). I eat it up like chocolate, pulse pounding and palms sweating… But I always end up completing these games too fast… And while my first inclination is to run through these horribly scary environments as fast as I can, I’ve made the right choice. Visceral Games has given us something worth taking our time.
There are enough reviews of Dead Space 3 out there right now, so I won’t go into too much detail, suffice it to say that the game has its faults… But you barely notice them. One of the biggest complaints for this iteration is the action-heavy theme this time around. Making Isaac more maneuverable, able to duck and roll and climb ladders, the significant jump in ammo count, but these aren’t just thrown in… I was never happy with the Resident Evil-style slow-walking Isaac from the first game, with his stiff movements and unconventional weaponry. These “changes” feel more like fixes to me, but that’s just my opinion. They haven’t turned Dead Space into Mass Effect… This game is straight up terrifying… And I like horror. I live for the thrill, the jump, the yelp. Dead Space takes it to a whole new level. See, one thing other reviewers are missing is the bigger picture here… And I think it’s because a lot of reviewers have a quota. They have to rush through and finish 3 or 4 times to test out what most consumers can take weeks, even months to savor… And that’s when I realize that Dead Space, while action-packed this time around, is meant to be savored.
It’s a feast for the senses. A gruesome, suspenseful, and epic sci-fi adventure that takes Isaac and his crew across the galaxy chasing the origins of the marker conspiracy. It looks bright and colorful on my LCD, and nearly flawless on the plasma screen. The crowded corridors and giant machinery of the environments are all accented by the scariest soundtrack I have ever heard in my life. Seriously, turn up the levels on your surround speakers a little and it practically drops you into the game. Noises like creaking ducts, slamming doors, awesome weapons, and all manner of beeps, blips, and alarms fill the scene… But it’s the whispers that truly freak me out. One of the main aspects of the plot is how the marker gets into people’s’ minds and seeps poison that drives them to insanity and murder. These whispers make you want to turn the game down, it’s that creepy.
I want to stress how visually stunning this game is. It’s easy to forget the graphics in a horror game where everything is dark and gory with disturbing monsters jumping out of nearby air ducts to surprise you as you walk down a seemingly safe passageway… But in Dead Space 3 there is a moment in the first few chapters, when Isaac must use his engineering smarts to fix up a 200-year-old space ship from a floating junkyard in orbit… This is genius level designing… Various half-wrecked hulks and abandoned space stations all connected by a handy little taxi system that lets you explore a staggering amount of free-roaming space… And the best part? It’s all in zero-gravity.
When Isaac emerges from the taxi to see the ancient spaceship graveyard for the first time, standing on a flimsy metal platform that overlooks the never-ending debris field that orbits a mysterious and stunningly rendered planet… It’s nothing less than poetry. It’s a special kind of magic that only video games can give you, and that’s when you forget you’re playing a game. It’s when you’re transported into the screen. When you’re actually standing on that flimsy metal platform, with the abyss of space before you. You can feel that first step off the platform… The vertigo is real… The suspense is maddening. It’s a beautifully crafted piece of pop art that deserves more praise and analysis than I can give. With an intricate plot, professional acting, outstanding graphics, intense gameplay… However it ends I know it’ll leave me wanting more. This is Dead Space.
Over the course of the first season, Outcast tells the story of two men battling demons both internal and external in the sleepy town of Rome, West Virginia. The main character Kyle Barnes (played by Almost Famous‘ Patrick Fugit) grew up in Rome, raised by a single mother who succumbed to a violent and abusive possession when he was younger. Flashbacks show her stalking him through the house like an animal, from the shadows, knocking him around and dragging him by his hair into the pantry closet Carrie-style. Years later, Kyle has moved into his mother’s old house after a domestic violence incident involving his wife and daughter. Here he meets up with Reverend Anderson, an older and somewhat wiser man, who tells him he has been fighting these “demons” for years. He is the kind of preacher that believes he is one of God’s holy warriors, and who has a Friday night poker game every week with the mayor, the sheriff, and the fire chief. Like Anderson, Outcast holds its cards close to its chest the entire game. From the first episode, there is very little exposition or set up, instead the writers keep the focus on the characters themselves as things happen around them.
Most shows these days spend an inordinate amount of time making sure the audience is following along. Outcast correctly assumes that most people can follow a plot without laying things out every step of the way… And it works extremely well in this case. The writers hook us in the first episode with a possession case that goes right for the gut- (SLIGHT SPOILER) – a young boy named Joshua nearly chews his finger off absentmindedly under the influence of some evil entity. When the Reverend and Kyle finally arrive to try and help the boy, the demon recognizes Barnes, calling him the Outcast and asking about his mother (who has been in a vegetative state for decades). Along the way, Kyle is bitten and some of his blood seeps into the boy’s mouth, causing him to convulsive and react violently, eventually spewing forth some kind of swirling black oil demon that dissipates into the air.
While the Reverend and Kyle Barnes play Demonic Hardy Boys, Kyle’s adopted sister Megan struggles to balance family life with an ever-increasing level of insanity in town. The sheriff follows a different set of clues following an arson that may or may not be connected to the rest of the town’s goings-on. Meanwhile a mysterious stranger shows up in Rome who seems to know a little more about the Merge than he might be letting on. All of these side-plots and interconnected story lines weave seamlessly through one another at the hands of shrewd and talented writers who have so far been able to ratchet up the suspense with every new episode.
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