OUTCAST: The Influences

I was the co-writer on a horror flick called Outcast which had cinematic release around a year ago. Writing with my brother Colm McCarthy (who also directed) we tried to tell an urban horror story, a tale of werewolves and witchcraft set in the drudgery of a Scottish housing estate. Now we are a year on from release, and because the question has come up a few times, I thought it might be interesting to go through some of the works that really influenced us. Some you may know, some may be new to you but all of them go together to help make up the DNA of Outcast.

The War Zone

The fantastic actor Tim Roth turned director for this deeply harrowing tale of dark family secrets. A fragile teenage boy (Terry Cunliffe) is at the heart of this film and we follow him as he uncovers earth shattering truths about his father played by Ray Winstone. This is a dark film, as dark as they come. Although it is not a genre piece there is, for me, a true sense of horror prevailing in this film. Something about the idea of observing a family where something fundamental is wrong and trying to figure out what it is really appealed to us.

Ratcatcher

Lynne Ramsay made waves last year with We Need To Talk About Kevin but it was her debut, made over a decade earlier, that really caught out eye. Ratcatcher is a poignant coming of age story set in Glasgow in 1973 against the fetid backdrop of a binman strike. 12 year old James is coming to terms with the death of another boy on his estate. A death that James was responsible for. This is another story where we see the world through the eyes of the young. The world of adults is mysterious, the older kids are threatening and the grim working class backdrop is the only world that James will ever know. Although it tackles some really difficult issues Ratcatcher is a beautiful film with moments of heartfelt joy scattered throughout it.

The Shining

Yes, we did watch one or two horror films before we started writing our own. Most of the films that influenced us did so in a negative way: they showed us what not to do. There's so much torture porn and slasher movies filled with big boobed bimbos. Too many horror films are about making you jump or squirm without really unsettling you. Not so with Kubrik's masterpiece of the genre. To me, this film is as unsettling as they come from. From the opening strains of Wendy Carlos and Rachel Elkind's eerie electronic score to the final shot of Jack Torrance grinning out of history this is a deeply troubling film. Kubrik was happy to throw more questions than answers at the audience and went to great lengths to remove any hint of cheese when adapting Stephen King's novel. Slow pacing and career defining performances from Jack Nicholson and Shelly Duval have made this an enduring classic. Some feel, myself included, that this is the greatest horror movie ever made. We thought about this a lot when writing Outcast and Colm managed to sneak in a few visual nods to Kubrik in the way he shot it.

The Terminator

It's amazing to think how far this film is from Avatar. Where The Terminator is dark, cynical, hard bitten and uncompromising Avatar is the opposite in every conceivable way. This was James Cameron's first proper film (let's forget about Piranha II: Flying Killers shall we) and it is probably his most frightening. The image of the unstoppable killer, stalking you from you nightmares is something that really struck a note with Colm and I. OK, so the second one has more bombastic action and the interesting mother and son relationship but what really got us going with this was relentless urban pursuit. Hunter and hunted transplanted from a fairy tale forest to “here, in our present. Tonight” This was a feeling that we wanted to run with, that feeling of modernity, of urgency. It just helps turn up the fear. The knowledge that something is coming for you and it absolutely will not stop. Ever. Until you are dead.

Red Road

If there is one film that really helped to define the visual feel of Outcast it would be Red Road. Andrea Arnold's debut feature is set in the eponymous Red Road estate in Glasgow and it tells the story of Jackie, who works as a CCTV operator. We watch her, watching people, and join her on a search for meaning. Jackie's life is empty, a tragedy befell her some years ago that hangs over proceedings like a dark cloud. Handheld, digital video. Naturalistic lighting. A fixation with the dilapidated architecture of council estates. These are all influences that we took from Red Road but our biggest discovery was its star. Kate Dickie, who played Jackie, is an unbelievably good actor. So much honesty and intensity goes into her performance here that it is quite disarming. It was a real treat to watch Kate work in Outcast and since then she has been making waves across the pond with a memorable performance in Game of Thrones and a part in Ridley Scott's much awaited Prometheus.

John Constantine: Hellblazer

OK, so this one is not a film, I mean there is a film of it. It's got Keanu Reeves in it. It is REALLY bad though, on no account watch it. To concentrate on the comic though: John Constantine is cynical Liverpudlian magician created by Alan Moore during his run on Swamp Thing. The character was given his own title, Hellblazer, in 1988 and writer Jamie Delano really went to town on creating a gritty, politically charged world where witchcraft and the occult bubble under the surface. In one story bankers are depicted as real demons, in another the antagonist is a corrupt policeman with no supernatural powers. What makes John Constantine an interesting character is that he is flawed, broken. An untrustworthy wreck of a man who'd throw anyone in front of the bus if it served his purposes. We tried to draw on this feeling, this idea that getting into magick is only going to mess up your life. I hope we did a bit better than Keanu Reeves, I really do.