Outpost (2022)

Outpost-(2022)
Outpost (2022)

Joe Lo Truglio is a well-known member of the comedy troupe that used to be referred together as The State, and who starred in the cult classic “Wet Hot American Summer.” Many avid fans of “Brooklyn Nine-Nine” may be surprised to learn that the witty comic actor has dabbled into genre cinema, releasing an unconventional thriller. “Outpost” moves horizontal expectations of where it’s headed, ultimately making it clear that Lo Truglio possesses some formidable genre skills. The challenge emerges from the fact that he still is an amateur in regards to acting, scriptwriting, pacing, as well as framing shifts which makes the movie feel overly fragmented and absurd for much of its time, which makes the more serious conclusive punch not land. Regardless, there is sufficient content in “Outpost” that makes me want to know what Lo Truglio will direct in the future, even if it drags him away from focusing his many skills on the screen in upcoming comedy projects.

Bad things find me, she says. This is a phrase Kate (Beth Dover, Lo Truglio’s spouse in real life) uses, a person who has suffered profoundly violent trauma. The details surrounding the violent attack in her house are vague. Nevertheless, we do hear bits and pieces of it in the open and see flashes represented as trauma across Kate’s face. After a traumatic experience, the feeling of being cursed or having a jinx and that bad things sub sequent Ly always seeking them out is almost commonplace. Similarly, Kate goes to the horrific feeling countryside in attempt to deal with the trauma she experienced. She got a job at a remote site in which ‘solo operators’ look out at the horizon for forest fires and record other data such as number of days since the last rain and relative humidity for the officials. Her assumption that being alone would prevent her from the threat she imagines every single stranger projecting towards her eyes is not correct. She is wrong.

To begin with, “Outpost” looks like a classic case of an individual working through trauma or gaining strength. Naturally, Kate is expected to overcome her trauma and perhaps salvage the situation. This isn’t that particular film. From the beginning, there are ominous clues that something is really wrong between Kate’s ears as she violently keeps having visions that seem to only get worse. What raises suspicion is whether the only local, a widower called Reggie (Dylan Baker) can be trusted and her boss – Earl (Ato Essandoh) and Dan (Dallas Roberts) doubts her competence. With Kate stuck in the middle of nowhere and not doing so well in that state of mind, I was starting to wonder if this is Lo Truglio’s fictional version of the pandemic. Everyone experienced a slight mental shift during the quarantine. But it’s not quite that movie either.

Lo Truglio certainly gets performances from his more than able supporting actors–most notably, Becky Ann Baker–but he is unable to get Dover to the place where she needs to be to sell this part. Part of the issue is that even the writing treats Kate as some comically shocked person who is only reacting to things she is not sure exist. Unreliable narrators are tricky to pull off because the performance has to embody disbelief in what we are all used to taking for granted–what our eyes show us. Dover never fully unpacks this multi-dimensional character which is Kate’s blueprint of the script instead of the fully fleshed out character that she should be. ‘Outpost’ is doomed to fail unless we buy into Kate’s storyline, her struggles and how she ends up, which in my case, was never the investment.

Nevertheless, the movie does get pretty dark pretty fast, which suggests to me that Lo Truglio could still manage to pull a full on vicious thriller with teeth from this story, which I hope he chooses to do one day. If he was able to tone down the shaky camera angles and choppier edits until the very end climax, I think he could be a quite good genre director. One of the most pleasant surprises for me was learning that one of my favorite comedians has more to him than I anticipated.

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