Movies
Shooting Begins On ‘Outpost’ Origin Story, ‘The Rise of the Spetsnaz’
Bloody has been told that Content has begun principal photography has on the third installment of the Outpost franchise, The Rise of the Spetsnaz. The film shoots on location in Glasgow and Yorkshire.
Kieran Parker (Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun) directs from a script penned by Rae Brunton (Outpost, Outpost: Black Sun). The cast includes Bryan Larkin (Battleground) as the lead Russian Dolokhov, and James “The Colossus” Thompson – Ultimate Combat World Heavy Weight Champion as The Berserker.
“In the third installment of the hit Nazi Zombie action horror movie, Outpost: Rise Of The Spetsnaz, we discover the horrifying origins of these supernatural soldiers and see them in ferocious gladiatorial battle against the most ruthless and notorious of all military special forces: the Russian Spetsnaz.”
The third Outpost will be an origin story with new baddies and Nazi Zombies cage fighting with Russian Special Forces! Content’s Jamie Carmichael promise sit’ll be “the goriest and most violent fight fest seen.”
Produced by Arabella Page Croft and Kieran Parker for Black Camel Pictures and Executive Produced by Nigel Thomas from Matador Pictures and Jamie Carmichael from Content, the film is backed by Matador Pictures, Creative Scotland, Creative Film Finances and SWSSC.
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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