Fergal lives with his mother Mary who uses ancient Celtic runes and magic to hide in the lower class estates in Edinburgh. Fergal starts going out with local girl Petronella. Mary's former lover Cathal and his brother Liam use powers to track her and her son. Locals start getting killed by a mysterious beast. Mary warns Petronella to stay away from Fergal.This has a nice bloody use of Celtic magic. It's very flesh and blood. The mystery of the beast is actually part of the problem. The rooting interest is geared towards Fergal but the beast is never far behind. It would be great to take all the dark grim bloody spells and combine them with a better story.

The defining feature of Outcast is its combination of supernatural horror with gritty social realism. It's fairly routine genre story operates within the backdrop of a deprived Edinburgh scheme. It's this combination that gives the film its one sense of originality. The seamier side of Edinburgh has been depicted before in films such as Trainspotting or The Acid House of course, but these rundown parts of the town have never to my knowledge been incorporated into a horror movie.The story is basically about an Irish mother and son who move into this deprived estate. While a couple of mysterious 'hunters' appear to be on their trail. In addition, a local girl begins a relationship with the boy, much to his mother's disapproval.Overall, this is a decent effort but no more. The setting is different - albeit very depressing – and provides the film with its strongest element. One of the main problems though is with the characters. None are particularly engaging; while the central love story is hugely unconvincing. This latter aspect really damaged the film, as the two leads really had no chemistry between them at all. On the other hand, the local neds were quite convincingly played but weren't integrated into the plot in a very interesting way unfortunately. So things ultimately boil down to the supernatural narrative which isn't overly interesting but serviceable enough. The film does have some gory set-pieces, and these are achieved via CGI which isn't especially great, although the monster is OK. Admittedly there are a few original little moments, such as the scene in the morgue but generally speaking there isn't anything especially new here besides the kitchen-sink setting.

The tale is outlined at first, then fleshed out. There is skillful employment of ambiguity. There is no formulaic plot here, although you know at the end there is going to be a showdown of one sort or another. Outcast has a dual meaning. There are disturbing elements of graphic violence, although they are strategic and never gratuitous. The review is dubbed as it is as the practices of the characters would appear to be those used in the fundamentals used in real witchcraft.The acting is solid. As others who have reviewed "Outcast" have noted, the film is not only about supernatural practices; there are cultural and age aspects to it as well. Cultural includes capturing the feel of the high rise projects (i.e. estates) and the busybody social workers that come with them. There are the tensions connected with melting pot clashes. Age aspects have young adults trying to find resonance with other young adults. A subject also breached is that of adults with developmental and cognitive impairments and differing views of where they fit into a culture.Aside from plot attributes, "Outcast" is a spell-binding (no pun intended) story that I felt compelled to watch until the end. Hoping to see more by this director soon!

Where to begin? Not only is that the question I have as a reviewer, it seems that was the question the director was asking himself for the first 20 minutes of this film. To call this film slow to start is an epic understatement. It uncomfortably squeezes it's way into a story arc, but never really doing so with a pace that keeps the viewers attention. After an extended wait we are introduced to our main characters, unlikeable as they basically all are.The main character, although honestly the film barely commits to it, is Petronella. A girl from some kind of mixed race background, who, for want of a better word, is seemingly "easy". She meets the second character, this time from a gypsy family, Fergal. What follows is an incredulously quick, and exceptionally unbelievably whirlwind romance, wherein Petronella falls madly in love for no real discernible reason, and winds up trying to have sex with him repeatedly. However, Fergal's highly creepy voodoo style mother is obsessed with keeping him from doing the deed, so forces him to stay in his room. He gets out all the time though, but only when she's not around.If this review seems disjointed, please, understand that this is what the film is like. You are introduced to characters whom you almost immediately share no compassion for, and are then forced to watch them form relationships that have no serious grounding. All under the story arc of Fergal being hunted by a random man, for undisclosed reasons. If it wasn't bad enough that the actress playing Petronella (Hanna Stanbridge) is indubitably too old to play a schoolgirl, then it's certainly bad enough that the gypsy magic sequences play out like a scene from Hackers. One party uses some ancient act by no doubt killing some form of animal, the other does the same to "block" this power. Who knew gypsy magic could be hacked? Seriously, I won't even delve any further into this shoddy material. It was a waste of film, and left only one temptation at the end, that of leaving as soon as humanly possible. Grotesquely over done sex scenes, silly cast choices, absolutely diabolical dialogue. Even the chavs in the film are blatantly acting school graduates with Kappa tracksuits on. I wish this was better, as I often enjoy James Nesbitt, but he was wasted with a character barely given room to grow. Simply put, avoid, at all costs.