The Dead Outside (2009)

Written by Kris R. Bird and Kerry Anne Mullaney
Directed by Kerry Anne Mullaney
Featuring Sandra Louise Douglas, Alton Milne, Sharon Osdin
2009 – Scotland

Its that story we’ve heard before – a virus runs rampant, affecting most of the population. It either turns you into a maniac or a living virus carrier. Either way you’re doomed. Individuals who have escaped getting infected band together and try to survive while dealing with the breakdown of civilization, society, and their own relationships. The Dead Outside, feature debut of Kerry Anne Mullaney, is set in the bleak, desolate frigid rocky landscape of rural Scotland. As if living in a hellhole like Scotland wasn’t enough, survivors Daniel and April must also contend with weird wandering lunatics who have had their brains turned into mush by the infection. The infected are unpredictable, violent, and angry...

Daniel runs out of gas on a lonely road in farm-happy countryside in the aftermath of the horrific epidemic that has made crazy folk of everyone. Unhappily, he goes on foot to the nearest farm house, where he meets April – a scared, angry young woman who isn’t afraid of using her shotgun on anyone who tries to jump the barb-wire protection she’s erected on top of the stone wall surrounding the farm. She’s all alone, and even once she sees that Daniel is one of the uninfected, she’s reluctant to let him inside the confines of her enclosure. But she does.

Eking an existence from chicken eggs, chopped firewood, and digging futility at the muddy Scotland horse-manure ground that passes as soil, Daniel and April spend frenetic days not really getting to know each other better, but without any other options.

Then Kate shows up, just like Daniel did, asking for protection. Sweet and seemingly harmless, Kate nevertheless is met with severe antagonism by April. Simple jealousy, or is April out of her freaking mind? And if she IS out of her mind, is she infected?

You never know. I’m pretty sure the point of the entire film is that there’s really no way to tell the difference between an insane person and a sane one in a world where people are put under extreme stress. April finally confesses to having been experimented on in the early days of the virus outbreak because she seemed to be immune. Unfortunately, the experiments, lockup, ill-treatment and torture drove her insane anyway, when she came home to shoot both her grandparents on their farm. Or was she actually infected the whole time?

Kate (Sharon Osdin)

And Daniel – is he just having nightmares every night about how his wife and young son went insane, or is he actually hallucinating? And if so, is it because he misses them, or because he’s infected? And Kate – well, she’s the most puzzling. When April almost commits suicide because of her jealousy over Kate and demands Kate leave, does that push Kate over edge? Or does Kate lose her mind because she was already out of her mind when she came by the farm to begin with? There’s no way of knowing. Because how could anyone ever know if they had lost their own mind or not? When civilization collapses there is no standard of sanity any longer.

The most depressing place on Earth: Northern Scotland

The bleak and dark landscape of northern Scotland is so depressing and so perfect for a horror movie setting. And all that bleakness, dark skies, chilliness, and gray didn’t cost the art department a penny! The Dead Outside takes advantage of the gorgeously morbid landscape. Slow moving and character-driven, the surreal drama is often cut abruptly with stark farmlands and impending rainclouds in the distance as tattered clothing blows in the wind from the barbed wire. And stuff like that.

April has had enough of the weather (and also that whole 'apocalypse' thing)

One of the 'Dying' outside corners April...

Extremely claustrophobic, the film locks all of the characters in this cold, depressing world and keeps them muffled up for heat, warmth, and common sense in the chilly confines of the creaky farmhouse. Surreally art house-y and interesting, The Dead Outside is rife with opportunities for more ambitious critics than myself to find allegory, symbolism, and hidden meaning in every harsh moment.