Outside Movie Review: Netflix’s Psychological Zombie Family Problem Movie That’s Even Scarier
Cast: Sid Lucero, Beauty Gonzalez, Marco Masa, Aiden Tyler Patdu, Enchong Dee, Joel Torre, James Blanco, Bing Pimentel
Director: Carlo Ledesma
Streaming Platform: Netflix
Filmyhype.com Ratings: 3.5/5 (three and a half stars)
What you should know if you want to watch Outside on Netflix is that you are getting a Filipino “zombie movie” that runs for an endless two hours and 22 minutes; that 10 minutes pass before you hear a single word; and that word is not spoken by who you would expect. Given the time of year, it is not at all unexpected that streaming platforms are enriching their catalog with new horror titles: a new version of the classic tale of the zombie epidemic is coming to Netflix, this time from the Philippines. A trite and hackneyed subject, yes, but if developed in the right way it still allows exploring interesting themes, first and foremost the extremes to which people will go to protect their loved ones in such dramatic situations. In this case, the end of the world has arrived for a family from the Philippines, who find themselves facing external demons (zombies) as well as internal ones to survive. Directed by Carlo Ledesma, Outside is a well-made genre product, which adds some new and intriguing ideas to the “already seen”.
The pace of a story like this should always be fast and sustained, but in Ledesma’s films it often slows down and focuses on the human drama experienced by the protagonists: this is not necessarily a bad thing, but a few cuts here and there in the footage would certainly have been beneficial. There are no overused genres if you have original stories to tell. And how do you tell original stories? By moving conflicts from the Outside to the inside. Transforming a zombie apocalypse into an introspective apocalypse: from a story of dead people coming back to life to a story of a family in conflict. This is what director and screenwriter Carlo Ledesma tried to do. His zombie movie is about a family drama and the subsequent fall of a man into the abyss of madness. An interesting idea that, however, does not develop in an equally convincing way. As I will tell you in the review of Outside, Ledesma first builds his characters well but then weakens them by overloading the plot with ideas and situations. All of this is inserted into a film that is too long and at times redundant.
Outside Movie Review: The Story Plot
At the center of this story, as we were saying, we find a family of four the father Francis (Sid Lucero), the mother Iris (Beauty Gonzales), and their two sons, Josh (Marco Masa) and Lucas (Aiden Tyler Patdu). In the beginning, we find them traveling to a remote location in the countryside, precisely the house of Francis’ father, a large farm where sugar cane was grown, and where the protagonist grew up. Amid a zombie apocalypse like the one they are facing, the idea of taking refuge in the middle of nowhere seems ideal, in fact, food and clean water are waiting for them. Too bad, however, that during his childhood the young Francis suffered terrible traumas in that large house, and the nightmares of his past will soon come to the surface and threaten his sanity. As if that were not enough, the relationship with his wife Iris seems to have definitively deteriorated for reasons that we will discover during the vision. The small family will thus find itself fighting not only with threats coming from Outside but also with internal ones, which separate them and distance them from each other, putting them in even more danger at a time when staying together would be fundamental.
A zombie movie that tells a different zombie story in Asian tones, mixed with family problems seamlessly. By not focusing on escape scenes or fighting zombies too much, but instead focusing on hidden family problems, by gradually telling the story of the husband’s childhood problems since he was living in this house with his parents and affecting his life in the present until it became more of a problem than the zombies. When the husband tried to think that this place was safe and he didn’t have to go anywhere else, the wife tried to take the children to find a surviving military camp not far away. The film tells the conflict of the couple, with the husband deciding to do everything every time, which always ends up being stuck in this house. The story is clever in gradually using the events where the husband decided to do something quite logically in a bad way to keep the family stuck in this house.
These stories are in harmony with the storytelling that gradually goes deeper into his past and is gradually revealed. The resolution of each problem is full of excitement, both encountering zombies and his actions that seem increasingly strange and scary from the husband’s mental issues towards his wife and two children, which he tried to use the children as a tool to make his wife unable to find a way to escape from him. The whole story is mainly played by 4 people, with other characters interspersed only briefly at certain points. However, they make use of the limited cast of characters who are trapped in a house where a mentally ill father has the power to control everyone’s lives frighteningly, with the zombies being just additional variables in this event.
The film also tells the story of a wife who seems to be weak and has to rely on her husband. But she gradually becomes more and more courageous when she sees that being stuck here with her husband is worse than the Outside world with zombies. Gradually, this character becomes more courageous, but it is not about standing up to fight her husband directly because she has some hidden problems in her life. Her husband holds the secret that makes her unable to go anywhere. And it connects to her husband’s mental problems, causing him to become a family man with a mild mental illness before. And then the zombie outbreak escalates to make this problem worse. The film tells these stories without having to explain them directly, but it is an indirect conversation that makes the audience think and connect with these things themselves.
Outside Movie Review and Analysis
In terms of zombies, the story doesn’t have many zombie scenes, but it’s not so little that it’s dry. But the movie only uses zombies when they really need them, and they appear. Every time a zombie appears, it’s a thrilling scene that goes into full zombie movie mode. There are groups of zombies that can run, zombies surrounding a house, and zombies that are familiar to people. The movie arranges zombies in every type that we’ve seen before, without explaining the reason why there’s a zombie outbreak in the world, because there’s no need for the story to happen. But there is a special ability that makes the zombies in this story have to repeat the same sentence, which is different for each person, and it makes it even scarier because it’s like a ghost stuck in a cycle that can’t be reborn.
The main weakness of the story is that the story focuses more on the drama of this problem than the zombies, so the story may seem slow and not exciting. The zombie scenes are not long, but it is a theme that the story wants to convey about the problems of families during the collapse of the world, whether they still stick together or not. And is this a chance to start a new life? Normal people probably wouldn’t think like this, but the story makes the mentally ill father think, which makes people who like zombie movies that think a lot probably like it more. If initially the zombies seem to be more of a secondary element to the personal drama of the characters, “a la” Last of Us in short, the more the film goes on the more the protagonist family finds itself facing them. And they are disgustingly as terrifying as they should be. To add that certain something extra to the characterization of the living dead, to make them original and unique just enough, there is then the fact that they can talk, or at least they can say a specific word, the last one they uttered when they were still alive. This will be important for the plot and serves on the one hand to make the creatures even more terrifying and on the other to extend the exploration of the human and emotional side of the story.
That’s when my list of criticisms ends. Because shortly after that moment, the narrative turning point arrives. The brilliant one, you think. Finally, something happens and even though the turning point comes after more than an hour and a half of film, you’re ready to forgive. But no. Outside could have been an original story, about a man who loses his mind during a zombie apocalypse and segregates his family (perhaps to the point of killing them and transforming them, for example). Too bad that this turning point, something a bit in the style of Parasite, came to mind to me and not to Carlo Ledesma (Seguita), the film’s screenwriter and director. There is a narrative twist, and for a moment it even seems interesting, but then everything gets lost in that human piadina that goes from “traumatized psychopath” to “responsible family man” mode in the blink of an eye.
There is a total lack of psychological depth here, and to have it, it would have been enough to explain a little more about that nightmare from the past, about the unequal treatment reserved for the children (which the victim then replicates in turn), about that distance preceding the epidemic that could break up a family. Instead, no, nothing. A few cryptic phrases, then resolved into an insult, and everything else remains there, suspended, open to our imagination. Including the ending. The care for the sets and the spacious landscapes contrasted with the claustrophobia of a house that once had to be rich and then fell into disgrace – a bit like a metaphor for Francis’s journey – and the direction work. These are the reasons why this film does not bring home a 3 or a 4 as a vote. Too bad it is not enough, although I expect that someone will shout masterpiece. Thinking, perhaps, of an innovative decline of the zombie genre. Yes, it could have arrived. But the starting point is always the script, and this is full of inconsistencies and gaps.
As explained in the review, the potential was there, and even from a stylistic point of view, the result is definitely appreciable. Too bad that everything is ruined by an approximate screenplay, which remains on the surface and hints at facts and events without really explaining them. Even the choice of the main actors is not very good: they end up looking like two caricatures, due to a script that certainly does not help but also because of their way of interpreting it. Carlo Ledesma is writing his second feature film after a series of shorts. The lack of experience is evident, although the talent in the staging is obvious. For this talent, someone will cry masterpiece. Those who have not studied screenwriting will do so. Let’s hope that with experience Carlo Ledesma, as he did not do Outside, will reach his potential.
Outside Movie Review: The Last Words
Outside is a well-made zombie movie with a good cast, in particular, Sid Lucero and Beauty Gonzales give life to their characters with intensity, giving the right weight on the screen to the dramatic choices they are forced to make. The viewer who loves the genre will find in this title the atmospheres that they are looking for in the typical film about the living dead and that extra uniqueness to make the viewing experience even more enjoyable. Outside is a good genre product with a convincing cast. That extra touch of originality in the characterization of the zombies will please lovers of zombie movies. Characters only work when their actions tell us – even without showing it – their past, their ideas, their education, and their character. Think of Rick Grimes (but also Glenn or any other character) from the glorious first seasons of The Walking Dead and then compare him to Francis. Poor Francis will come out of this in pieces. And a little bit of you, too, thinking about the wasted opportunity.
Outside Movie Review: Netflix’s Psychological Zombie Family Problem Movie That's Even Scarier - Filmyhype
Director: Carlo Ledesma
Date Created: 2024-10-17 19:21
3.5
Pros
- The story involves
- Good casting work
- The characterization of the zombies is interesting.
Cons
- The film is too slow at times
