Cinemax’s Outcast
Season 2, Episode 10: “To The Sea”
Directed by Loni Peristere
Written by Chris Black
* For a recap & review of the penultimate Season 2 episode, “This Is How It Starts” – click here
Again from the pulpit, Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) leads his flock and gives them hope once more. Or does he? He starts ripping pages from the Bible, calling them bullshit. He preaches finding the enemy, destroying them and their evil influence.
At the same time, those at the Lighthouse are preparing their own rituals, led by Simon Barnes (C. Thomas Howell) with his son Kyle (Patrick Fugit) watching on.
Anderson: “Devil or not, evil exists.”
There’s something heavy brewing in the air, though I’m not sure what exactly. A showdown’s coming, one way or another.
Kyle catches up with his father after all these years, talking of how his mother, how he didn’t want to leave a stain on the family. He hoped leaving meant the demonic possession and all that mess would pass him, leave him be. There’s certainly no love lost, as there was never much in the beginning. Kyle feels abandoned, and rightfully so. Now cult leader daddy is back, a head full of plans.
What about Megan (Wrenn Schmidt)? Well, she’s being taken care of by Dr. Ken Park (Hoon Lee), held in a locked room. The demons are going to need that baby of hers, to help them with whatever’s meant to come with the Great Merge. But apparently no one like them has carried one to term. A new frontier.
Simon talks with Dakota (Madelyn Deutch) about the coming Merge. She’s under the impression that only the “pure” will remain afterwards. Although she isn’t struck with confidence in the way he speaks, not now. Either way, they’ve got weapons and other needed items stockpiled in preparation.
Poor Byron Giles (Reg E. Cathey) is still reeling from the loss of Rosie, trying to figure out where he’ll put her body. His old pal Anderson offers what comfort he can in such a harsh time. He’s ready to fight a war, and Giles suggests they start with the list Rosie compiled of the possessed in Rome.
Under the watchful eye of Blake Morrow (Lee Tergesen), Megan and her daughter Holly exist in a prison. Mom does her best not to freak out or act suspicious. She ingratiates herself and her daughter to Blake, acting friendly, building trust. However, he knows this is all a ruse, threatening brutal violence if she tries doing it again. Yikes.
In the woods Dakota finds others from her cult cutting down trees. She says that Simon’s “lost his way.” Yet nobody else seems ready to believe her, still trusting in the power of their beacon prophet. At the same time, Simon and son go looking for Junkyard Bob (M.C. Gainey), who’s definitely surprised to see his former buddy. Then Kyle finds out Amber and Allison (Kate Lyn Shiel) were taken from their motel. Moreover, dad shows his son a few tricks about his own powers; the powers they share alike. He advises not rushing into anything, but to take the time, use his power, and he’ll locate his family.
Park goes to see a woman in a fancy house. She apparently has a power like Kyle and Simon and Amber, grabbing the doc by the hand as the black veins bulge and throb around his hands and his face. Sidney was actually protecting Kyle and his daughter, as they’re able to bring about the Merge. Now? It’s Park’s job.
Simon: “They hate what makes us human”
With all the shit Helen caused back in the day, Simon remembers there were 9 beacons; only 8 were found. So, this means there’s someone left out there who may be capable of helping them in their latest journey. They go visit Bob’s sister Emma (Laura Gardner), her husband Martin Pruitt (Mark Jeffrey Miller) – he’s not in good shape, they did a number on him years before. Martin holds a key to helping them stop more demons, unfortunately he’s as close to a vegetable without being one as he can get.
At the police station, Byron picks up ammo and weapons. He and the Rev have picked up the people on that list, the demonically possessed. They’re all transported to the station – a “Holy War” has begun, Giles tells one of his former officers. The remainder of the congregation helps pull them together, like God’s army. Dakota turns up to speak with Anderson, who’s not particularly keen on working with her. But it seems she’s taking a turn.
“Like water drawn to the sea” the Barnes men are pulled back together. Later, they receive a visit from Emma and Martin, to hopefully aid in whatever’s headed for Rome. A group of them all head together into the forest.
Simultaneously, Blake is having flashes, visions of Kyle and people in that same forest, as he plans on taking Megan and her daughter elsewhere. Then Park turns up, finding Blake tearing the place apart – neither he nor Megan want to be part of his experiments. This puts the two possessed men against one another until the doc uses a Taser to drop Blake, and outside Megan manages to flee in the car.
In the woods, Kyle, Simon, and the others gather. A storm comes together overhead. Also returning, finally, are Amber and Allison; Kyle’s dad was holding them for safety. Together, all those beacons with their power align and concentrate their faith on the demons of Rome. Suddenly a light opens in the darkness, a bunch of the beacons cut their throats and Simon cuts Martin’s open wide. WHOA! Simon tells his boy their blood will help seal the darkness.
And now Kyle offers himself up for sacrifice. Grandpa says they also need his daughter, too. Interrupting the madness, Giles and Anderson show up with their people; even Dakota fights with them. A massive fight breaks out, as Simon tries putting the knife to his son’s throat. A wild sequence, perhaps the craziest of the whole Outcast series!
When Kyle comes to, his family is safe. But things aren’t going well, many are infected with the darkness again and going absolutely mad. This is the start of something even worse than before, something scarier.
And guess who woke up?
Mama Barnes, after all these years.
CINEMAX, PLEASE DO NOT CANCEL THIS! We need a Season 3, we have to find out more about the Great Merge, about the plans of Dr. Park and Megan’s baby, about Sarah Barnes and what will happen now that she’s out of her decades-long coma. Give it to us, Cinemax! Don’t you dare fuck us. This is one of my favourite TV shows currently, I need more. WE need more.
Dr. Kenneth Park (Hoon Lee) notices a sore on his human suit, so he slices open the skin to take care of that pesky blemish, only a reminder that it’s either rot away as a human being, try to wait out until the Great Merge, or find another way. He’s definitely determined to figure out something else, though it’s obvious his time is numbered as a flesh and blood mortal. Poor demon.
Poor Megan Holter (Wrenn Schmidt). In all this it’s easy to forget she’s also a widow, the demon inside her having taken her husband brutally. Now she’s also got trouble at the Lighthouse, with Dakota (Madelyn Deutch), after the death of the woman trying to do some strange shit with her fetus. At the hands of Blake Morrow (Lee Tergesen). Doesn’t help that Anderson and Megan figure out that the Lighthouse is, essentially, a doomsday cult at its core, and Dakota’s leading them all in preparation for The Apocalypse.
Megan packs up her daughter Holly, looking to hit the road. Anderson doesn’t stop her. He encourages her to leave before things get too wild. A tough road ahead, no doubt. I keep wondering about the Rev, if he’ll find his faith again wholly or if he’ll be forever ruined by his experiences in Rome.
At a gas station Megan is headed off by Dr. Park, he wants a chat. She’s got life growing inside her. A life that Blake told him of, now the one-man council is looking forward to the birth. They all are, in fact. This is fucking terrifying stuff, we’re standing on the precipice of a horrific prospect in this revelation.
BAM!
When in Rome… yeah, that’s not gonna work here. Or maybe it does work for Sidney (Brent Spiner).
What about Rosie (Charmin Lee)? She’s been up to a few things, without her husband Byron (Reg E. Cathey) in his weakened state. She’s been real busy getting shit done. But is she safe?
Across town the big, bad boss Sidney goes to meet the Council for coffee. He tells them Helen Devere was “successful” in her work. That he’s trying to figure out how she nearly brought about the Merge. But the Council is waning in their support for his little experiments, they want action.
Sidney’s still kicking, walking along the road until someone picks him up. He heads back to town in rough shape. Over at the Lighthouse, Anderson follows Dakota into the woods as she goes on by herself. To a cellar a ways out. He finds what they call a dormitory, and he knows better. They’re going to be keeping somebody down there. Then he sees it’s Sidney himself.
Flashback to Simon Barnes (Justin Randell Brooke) and the ‘work’ he was doing. We see that Simon has the same power as his son Kyle (Patrick Fugit) would later inherit. Although the father tried he couldn’t figure out how to stop “the Great Merge” as the woman calls it before biting off her own tongue. Demonic possession at its finest.
Allison (Kate Lyn Sheil) is still at the hospital, taking her medications and doing as she should to get better. She looks vacant, as if her entire soul is sucked out. But she does keep a picture under her pillow to remind herself of her daughter, life outside those crazy walls. Problem is there’s a whole other issue of the possessed going on at the hospital, a mini-infestation within the town. A microcosm of the horror going on all over. A creepy patient at the hospital mentions Allison’s “little firefly” and then disappears in the darkness. Terrifying.
At the hospital, Allison worries about the strangeness she’s seen. The eerie patient with the beanie speaking of her daughter. A boy locked in a cell, even though they don’t treat children in that facility. She talks with the doctor, whose disposition doesn’t seem altogether friendly or helpful. There’s definitely trouble rising at that place.
Byron storms the mic to say his piece. While he does a cough overtakes him, he then hits the floor. Rose runs up and gets tossed aside by the mayor. People block Kyle from going up. The demons are loose! He and the Rev fight through using Kyle’s power and then Giles is gone. Whoa, this is not good. They locate him on a school bus out back. He isn’t well, becoming violent. Kyle goes to touch him and takes a stab in the gut.
WHAT AN EPISODE! I constantly say this, I know. But it’s true. Outcast not only consistently deepens its character development, it likewise goes headlong into the series mythology with new strides each episode. Excited to see “Fireflies” next. I’m thinking there’ll be more Amber now, and that maybe, just maybe, she and her dad have a reluctant family business ahead of them. Plus, I’m glad Giles isn’t taken fully by the demons; he is awesome!
Sidney (Brent Spiner) is taking care of his burned, young friend, who asks about if what Reverend Anderson (Philip Glenister) says of him is true. And the mysterious man says that the rev’s book calls him a “dragon” and he’s been called many other things by humans of flesh and blood. He has big plans for the kid, that’s why he saved him from the fire.
Dealing with the consequences of her husband’s death, Megan (Wrenn Schmidt) has reached the lowest depths of herself. She’s dragged from the water by Rev. Anderson. He makes clear he wouldn’t judge her; not in the places he’s been himself. Even quotes a bit of Dr. Seuss. Meanwhile, Kyle (Patrick Fugit) takes Amber to go see her mother, Allison (Kate Lyn Sheil), at the hospital. Things aren’t well between the estranged husband and wife. While Amber waits for her parents to chat, a man approaches her in a creepy manner, though a hospital attendant shows up. However, there’s something odd about her. She and the man corner Amber, and the little girl uses her own powers to fend them off; she’s just like her papa.
What a great episode! This series gets exponentially better, as well as the fact it has a great score and soundtrack alike. Lots of things to look forward to, particularly “The One I’d Be Waiting For” next week. More demons, more Sidney, more mystery.
Sean Byrne’s debut feature The Loved Ones rocked me in 2009. It was unique and horrifying. I knew he’d give us more terror eventually. Although I didn’t think it would take another 6 years. When you wait that long and the product ends up being something altogether eerie, you thank a writer-director who so obviously digs the genre.
“I didn‘t mean to do this”
Byrne does a fantastic job providing us with an alternative story about possession and occult horror. Not saying he’s reinvented the wheel. But god damn me to hell if he doesn’t offer up a horror that doesn’t take the same old beaten path. Peppered with equally fantastic performances, The Devil’s Candy is a personal favourite of mine since 2000.
Director Michael McQuown sent me a screener for his and co-director Vincent J. Guastini’s independent film, 
My only beef, and I’ll get to this first before discussing what I enjoyed so much, is that the directing is mostly excellent. Then, they choose to show us too much. For the longest time what we only get glimpses of in frame is what drives the pulse-pounding terror. As you can see in the photo above, that’s a startling shot. Love that moment; freezing the frame only compounds the fear. However, the directors lose some of that momentum later when they choose to show this demonic figure up close for too long. They try offsetting this with the use of camera glitches (et cetera). But it never makes up for the undoing of the fright from seeing the creature long enough we can start picking out some of the less stellar aspects of its creation.
The tapes have an overall framing narrative, though I think that while there’s a connection between the tapes as a whole, it isn’t as connective as the filmmakers might hope. Mostly, I don’t feel that the connections are tight enough. The writing is interesting, at every turn. I can’t help think McQuown could’ve brainstormed something better to make them all into the cohesive unit the beginning (and mid-credits) speech we hear wishes it’d become. If this were tighter then it would’ve greatly improved the film.
For a low budget, non-studio film, The Dark Tapes has an impressive production value. This is one of the things that keeps even the lesser pieces involving, it’s better than the average indie found footage attempt. With so many of these sub-genre flicks saturating the market, incredibly easy to make on a shoestring to non-existent budget, it’s nice to see what’s so obviously a labour of horror love come to the screen from these directors.
Can’t go wrong with starting on a Crowded House tune! And what about the demons left lurking in Rome, West Virginia?
Megan (Wrenn Schmidt) is being kept under close watch. She’s still not right, nor will she ever be, really. Her brother’s doing all he can to help, though between the possession and the tragedy she caused while under a demonic spell it’ll be a while before she can drag herself back from this dark, despair-filled pit. There’s also Patricia (Melinda McGraw), whose boy is gone, missing. The rev tries to assure her it wasn’t her fault, forces outside of her control took hold of the boy.
There are a lot of things happening in Rome, West Virginia! Very interesting opener to Season 2. I’m looking forward to more. This series has been great since the first episode, and I feel like they’re hitting a beautiful, disturbing, fresh stride with every subsequent chapter.
Not sure why certain horror sequels aren’t appreciated as much as others. It’s a strange phenomenon that doesn’t always happen to crime or drama movies when sequels come out. Many people love 
Quickly you’ll find the camera work is more inventive and fluid than the first film, as well as the fact it helps put you in a very different psychological perspective. Almost like we start to see from the point-of-view of the house, or the ghosts and demons lurking within its walls. For instance, early on when the mother is in the basement and has one of the men look in the crawlspace, a tracking shot comes out of the hole in the wall and sneaks behind her. She tells her son moments later: “Somebody… touched me.” Di Giacomo and Wallace utilise this shot to great effect. In another film we’d see the mother walking away from the crawlspace, a ghostly apparition behind her reaching to touch the shoulder, and then cut to NOTHING behind her. Instead, this makes us feel as if we’re seeing what the ghosts (or demons or whatever) are seeing. It’s a visceral shot, placing us in the ghostly perspective. This reoccurs over and over. Not repetitively, but to amplify this effect.
The big changeover scene where the possession fully takes place, crossing us over from the point-of-view tracking shots to a more steadily framed view of the horror – is what I call “the stomach scene”: we watch as the camera zooms in and out on Sonny’s body, mostly his stomach, as he sweats and screams and moans while the demonic spirit enters him. It’s a – pardon this pun – gut wrenching scene. Magner sells it totally, which is amazing considering that his only other film is the Stephen King adaptation Firestarter. But Magner, the camera technique, really takes you into his physical transformation. I also consider part of this sequel body horror. Reason being, Sonny experiences a physical shift, his skin often fattens up, getting lumpy, or getting more emaciated. The process of possession, naturally, wouldn’t be such a breeze as all of a sudden there’s a demon inside you, some ghost inhabiting your flesh. Sonny goes through a terrifyingly nasty transformation before our eyes. This culminates in an amazing scene near the end where we actually see the demon in him for a moment, breaking through the skin to emerge in all its sticky, gruesome glory. There are a number of moments where the body horror element takes hold. Each worth the time to pause on, as even the makeup is bang on.
For me, Amityville II: The Possession is a classic of the horror genre. Totally underrated, underappreciated. You don’t have to think it’s the greatest, there are still mistakes or things Wallace could have made better. I can’t discount what’s he done with this sequel, though. He outdoes the original, adds a bit of backstory (we get short mentions of a supposed witch expelled from Salem who built the house over an ancient Indian burial ground; an element reused in the original’s 2005 remake). His story of the family is beyond disturbing material, in a way that makes for a compelling supernatural-leaning plot. Finally, the camera work and the way it plays into the psychological terror is perfect; the one aspect of the film I find untouchable.
