this movie speaks to me in accents so thick you'll need subtitles.

Was actually really good. Not a normal Nicolas cage movie I must say this is quite entertaining.

The development of the story took 3/4 of the film leaving no room for climax. Character development is also not strong enough for me to feel for their pain.

A well crafted horror thriller. The cinematography is excellent, creating convincingly dreary atmosphere, and the acting is also very good. It felt as though the story could have been developed a little more, but still, kudos to first-time director for making an engaging thriller.

A Triumphant Co-Production Between Ireland And Scotland, Which See's A Doomed Romance, Mythical Irish Creatures And An Edinburgh Setting. This Film Is Both A Romance And A Horror, That Works With Its Irish & Scottish Mythology And Its Strong Plot.

Bleak but decent horror/monster movie. A woman and her teenage son move to a small Scottish town but it soon becomes clear that they don't stick around in these places for long as it seems they, the boy Fergal in particular, are being hunted by a man using witchcraft to help get into their strange world but Fergal's mum is also a powerful witch and uses her powers to deflect him. Meanwhile, a beast is lurking around town, killing people at night...Outcast is pretty bleak and dark. It's rainy setting perfect for this type of film, giving it a gritty feel. I also enjoyed the occult element, Outcast not just being another generic monster/werewolf movie, more of a brutal horror/thriller with a pinch of coming-of-age to. British viewers might also recognise James Nesbitt and Kate Dickie, who do a fine job along with the, mostly young, cast.

A real curio, and something of a missed opportunity. Some great casting (Nesbit and Dickie are, as always, fantastic) and some poor (the teenagers are far too old for their arc's to be believable. I didn't realise until the final act they were supposed to be teenagers!), it seems that the DoP and script could have been better served by a director with more confidence or a stronger vision.

Outcast (Colm McCarthy, 2010)There's a great, great sequence about an hour into Outcast that sums up pretty much everything I found compelling about this movie, the first feature from veteran TV director McCarthy (Murphy's Law), which he co-wrote with Tom K. McCarthy (no idea if they're any relation). Tomatsk (Josh Whitelaw in his first screen appearance), a mentally challenged boy of indeterminate age (I suspect late teens/early twenties, but it is never disclosed), goes through a series of coincidences that may, or may not, put him in harm's way. But Tomatsk is never the main player in any of these scenes, save the final one; he's on the sidelines, and we're led to believe he's a bit player, a piece of window dressing or local color, until we realize that, in fact, this entire sequence of events has led up to Tomatsk being in this alley at this particular time, and we hear one thing just as the camera pans round and we see another, and god if it isn't tempting indeed to believe the lord loves drunks and fools, but god is nowhere to be found in this tale of warring magics and forbidden love.Plot: Mary (Prometheus' Kate Dickey) and her son Fergal (Niall Bruton in his first feature appearance) are wanderers, and they've just settled into a new flat in the heart of Dublin's tenement district. Mary is a witch, and her first act after the bags are unpacked is to paint the walls with protective runes against any who would harm her or Fergal. Living next door is a Scots/Romany family, but most we see of them, save a single scene (the first scene in the sequence I described in the first paragraph, in fact) is fetching Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge, also in her feature debut) and her brother Tomatsk. Fergal and Petronella meet by chance one day outside the local grocery, and nothing is quite the same after that. But love brings vulnerability, and Mary and Fergal's settling has not gone unnoticed: a pair of magicians, Liam and is apprentice Cathal (Red Tails's Ciaran McMenamin and Millions' James Nesbitt) are tracking them, though the local Laird (Braveheart's James Cosmo) is wary of their presence, and an inhuman beast seems also to be stalking the family, striking closer to home with each kill."Urban fantasy" has been one of the great buzzwords in publishing for about a decade now, stories of faerie transplanted to New York or LA or Vegas or London, but this is the first time I've ever seen a movie that I can say with no qualms is a serious attempt as making a film that qualifies as urban fantasy. And despite McCarthy's falling to convention in the last fifteen minutes or so and filling the ending full of twists (though all of them are as carefully set up as the scene above), there's no doubt this film fills the bill. McCarthy has taken a tale of wizards and witches and set it in Dublin, plastered it over with that dark, oppressive urban-fantasy atmosphere, even thrown in the requisite romance subplot, and the entire damn thing succeeds. It succeeds, I think, because (I'm hypothesizing here, but this is how it feels to me) McCarthy, since he was working in a field very popular in literature but almost nonexistent in film, approached this as a novel. He thought a lot about setting up that sequence I talked about in the opening paragraph, and that's not an anomaly; that's the way this movie goes. The movie is slow during the first half, but that's what comes from taking your time to develop your characters; I don't think most film viewers will have a problem with that if they don't go in expecting a big action film. It helps, of course, that the McCarthys have written characters that they actually do develop. If the movie does have a flaw, it's that the main characters are so realistic that the two-dimensional minor characters (the women from the Tenement Association, Petronella's ex-boyfriend, and the Laird are all good examples) stand out maybe more than they should. But I wasn't willing to let that interfere with my enjoyment of what is otherwise an excellent piece of work. This is truly must-see TV for fans of urban fantasy. ****

In "Outcast," Cathal(James Nesbitt) has struck a deal to get powerful tattoos for his hunt, along with assistance and guidance from Liam(Ciaran McMenamin) but the laird(James Cosmo) draws the line at talking to the dead. Meanwhile, Mary(Kate Dickie) decorates the new apartment she shares with her teenage son Fergal(Niall Bruton) with sigils that include some of her own blood. As a protective mother, she warns him about the dangers of the opposite sex but to no avail when he meets Petronella(Hanna Stanbridge) and her brother Tomatsk(Josh Whitelaw) before being introduced to Ally(Karen Gillan) at the swings. Yes, yes, I know you have been down the path of supernatural hormonal teenagers plenty of times before but "Outcast" overcomes that tired old formula, not only due to the quality performances of its leads, but also because of its creepy atmosphere.(There is some gore here for those interested in that sort of thing.) In fact, the magic and the reality of the council estates provide a neat juxtaposition, in showing how much has been forgotten over the years and just lurking beneath the surface. Another way of looking at this setting is as a trap for young people, as apparently there are an endless amount of ways for parents to screw up their kids.

A strikingly original and very dark urban fantasy.

I'd have to say that this movie is pretty good overall. I think it's got an unique approach to its story and a visual style that helps set the mood perfectly. You can sense that a lot of work was put into this so, to me, this doesn't feel like the standard horror fare. But at the same time there's something underwhelming about the entire movie. It's never bad, but I think the movie gets a confusing when it's trying to explain backstory or how the powers these "people" have work. You never really have any idea what's going on in these scenes, because they never clearly explain what's going so you have to guess most of the times. There's a good idea here with Fergal being so fed up with living a sheltered life that he does the one thing that puts him in more danger than he already is. But, again, there's not much complexity to these parts either, perhaps it's because the actor playing Fergal isn't necessarily great. The acting is strong, but mostly the veteran actors like James Nesbitt and Kate Dickie do a great job at their roles. It's kind of a shame, as mentioned, that the movie pales in comparison to the other, and better, parts of the film. I think this could've been something special if the script was a little bit more explanatory than it was. It just felt like everything else got more attention than what is ultimately the most important part of the movie, the script. But, even with all that, I still think it's a pretty good movie with some good ideas, a good visual style and good atmosphere that's lessened by a confusing script.

Some subtitles would have been nice, many sentences are unintelligibly Scottish. Great acting and directing. Cool mix of witchcraft, monster and teen romantic drama.

A unique genre blend into the occult, working a feat on a limited budget.

Strange but predictable. Weird but compelling. A very British horror movie that was better than it should really have been.

British Horror film with James Nesbitt who is trying to track down a werewolf/beast in Edinburgh. Dark and sinister it's a good effort all round.