Charles Boyle, aka actor Joe Lo Truglio, writing and directing a horror film wasn’t on my bingo card, but here we are. Like many other fantastic comedians before him, there’s a love of all things scary in Truglio and judging by his debut film Outpost, the works of Kubrick and King especially. There’s a little bit of The Shinning in Outpost, a film that’s set in one location and follows the slow psychological turn of its lead character, but there’s more here with themes of domestic and childhood trauma, though the intense subject matter does prove to be a little too heavy for Truglio in his feature debut.
Kate (Beth Dover) seeks solace and safety as her abusive ex is on the run. So she asks her best friend Nickie (Ta’Rea Campbell) to speak to her brother about getting Kate a three-month stint in a fire watch tower. Although the thought process behind this is quickly run-through, it’s the solitude and presumed safety of being so far from her city life that Kate seeks out this volunteer duty. Of course, once Kate arrives at her tower, the bugs circling bloody corpses of animals and waking nightmares all begin to twist and turn into reality as she struggles to keep up with what’s real and what’s not.
Kate is a character who riddles with un-discussed and undiagnosed PTSD. She heads into work the day after her partner attacks her; she runs off into the bush seeking answers and ultimately fails to ever deal with her demons. It’s sad. However, the story of many in the world who push through their trauma, digging it deeper into the recesses of their minds until it disappears or corrupts them. That’s what’s relatable and scary about Outpost. On paper, this grief and demons lurking within Kate’s mind are as much a challenge to overcome and speak openly about as anything else in life, but she never does.
On paper, Joe Lo Truglio knows what he’s trying to say, even if Outpost falls off the rails in the film’s final act, and there’s considerable choice to focus the camera on off-putting imagery to build tension amongst viewers, which comes off rather amateurish. Rather than relying on the subject matter and Denver herself, it feels like Truglio is scared to let go of the audience’s hand. The slow zooms on dead animals and hanging shots of bugs on walls did nothing for me. When a fire starts and I’m unsure if it’s for real or Kate’s mind, that’s thrilling. When someone may be creeping amongst the trees at night, is it an animal or abusive ex-Mike? That’s scary.
Beth Dover does well to carry the majority of the film by herself. However, scenes with her closest neighbour in the bush, Reggie, played by Dylan Barker and local traveller Bertha, played by Becky Ann Barker, elevate every scene these actors appear in. What needs to be added to Kate isn’t Dover’s fault, but instead a missing element of the script and direction. Kate never becomes more than her trauma, and I never learnt enough about her pre-trauma to know what her life and job were like before the trip. It doesn’t make it hard to root for Kate, as anyone under such a heavy weight you’ll naturally want to succeed, but I never felt close to Kate as a character or could say I knew much about her. It is especially disappointing because so much of the film is spent with her alone, but never given a scene to expand upon her personality and life back home.
