Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz

The film begins with an old man drinking at a bar. He drops a Red Army medal into his glass and says “They who have been, will never be forgotten”.

In March of 1945, the Red Army continues its drive towards Berlin. Russian commando Dolokhov leads a reconnaissance party, a unit known as the Red Guard, through a stretch of forest, searching for a German camp. Arkadi, the team’s machine gunner, voices his concerns with their route, pointing out that a set of German maps they’d captured did not display any Wehrmacht facilities in the area.

The Soviet soldiers set an ambush along the road. A small convoy of Waffen-SS troops soon appears; further off in the forest, a second SS patrol is seen holding a Russian soldier prisoner. The SS captain in command of the patrol gives the all clear to the convoy, unaware of the main group of Russian commandos, who swiftly massacre the convoy personnel. The enraged SS-Hauptsturmführer(captain) murders the Russian POW and declares “we hunt!”; it’s revealed the Germans are using the undead to help them, as a reanimated corpse roars in the foreground, and, attached to a metal chain as a leash, leads the SS patrol towards the Russians.

Voronin, one of the Russian commandos, is assigned to lookout duty as the rest of the men search the convoy vehicles; another Russian, Osakin, brutally slits the throat of a SS trooper who’d managed to survive the ambush. While searching the trucks, Dolokhov discover bizarre medical files and a strange syringe, as well as what appear to be human remains. The Russians attempt to discuss what their discoveries might mean, but they are interrupted by Voronin fleeing back down the road, pursued by a German halftrack carrying another squad of Waffen-SS troopers. Voronin is cut down by the halftrack’s heavy machine gun as the remaining Russians flee into the tree line; young commando Kostya is wounded and captured in the process, while Arkadi is also captured.

Dolokhov, Osakin, submachine gunner Fyodor and the team’s sniper, Potrovsky, successfully manage to escape the initial wave of pursuers and split up to make it harder to track them, with SS patrols fanning out into the woods after them. Osakin is killed by a German grenade, while Fyodor is shot and captured. Potrovsky stops to provide sniper support, killing several SS troopers pursuing Dolokhov. However, he is so fixated on what he can see through his scope that he fails to notice the reanimated German soldier stalking him; the creature brutally kills Potrovsky, and Dolokhov is captured while attempting to return to help him. Dolokhov is dragged back to the German halftrack and brought to a bunker, where screams and moans can be heard coming from every direction.

Dolokhov is thrown into a cell with Arkadi, a badly wounded Fyodor, and an American POW, Rogers. Arkadi notes that, despite the smell of death emanating throughout the bunker, there doesn’t seem to be any signs of rats, with is bizarre. Rogers claims to be OSS and informs the Russians that the Germans are working on a project to create an army of reanimated corpses; he also claims to have extensive knowledge of the bunker’s air ducts and shafts. Kostya, who is held in a separate cell from the rest of the captured Russians, is attacked and brutally mauled by one of the SS’ test subjects; Arkadi and Dolokhov rush to his defense, and, using a metal pipe and their boots, swiftly dispatch the creature, but Kostya’s wounds are fatal, and he dies soon thereafter.

SS- Standartenführer(Colonel) Strasser, the leader of the German reanimation project, sends in a second reanimated corpse, a hulking creature which shows extreme strength and skill in hand to hand combat. Rogers is killed in the creature’s initial charge, and Arkadi is also killed during the fight. Dolokhov finally manages to snap the creature’s neck and finish it off. Strasser praises Dolokhov and orders him and Fyodor brought to a new level of the bunker, where numerous reanimated corpses are held in cells. Strasser brings Fyodor and Dolokhov to a medical bay to demonstrate how he creates the creatures. He explains that the serum the Russians discovered in the convoy activates cells in the human body that prepare it for the effects of Die Glocke, the machine from the previous films. A test subject is forced into a chamber as the Germans fire up Die Glocke, the machine’s effect causes some of the SS guards, merely standing in the room next door, to vomit, and the man forced into the chamber’s head explodes outright.

Fyodor is forced into the chamber next and exposed to Die Glocke’s power; he survives the test and manages to kill several of the Germans as they attempt to restrain him before they manage to get him tranquilized. Dolokhov is returned to his cell, but manages to keep the lock from fully engaging by jamming a tooth, taken from the dead test subject, into the lock chamber. He manages to kick the door open after numerous tries, swiftly knocking a pair of SS guards who came to investigate his actions unconscious with a night stick and sealing them in his cell. Seeking to avoid detection by roving SS guard patrols, Dolokhov enters another cell(encountering the Breather from the first film, which he hastily flees from) and then makes his way through the bunker, killing several SS men with a combat knife in the process. After discovering the bunker’s radio room, Dolokhov kills the SS radio operator with a hatchet and attempts to contact his headquarters. Unable to reach them, Dolokhov returns to the medical bay, killing the Germans there and freeing Fyodor. The two men continue advancing through the bunker, killing numerous SS troopers. As they make their way to level six, Fyodor slowly begins to succumb to the injection and exposure to Die Glocke.

Strasser orders his men to open the cell doors and unleash numerous reanimated corpses being held on that level; he leaves a force of several dozen SS men to guard the doors, with orders to kill anything which comes out of level six. Fyodor puts up a heroic fight against numerous reanimated corpses to give Dolokhov time to escape before he is finally overcome and killed. One of the reanimated corpses, the hulking creature which Dolokhov had previously killed(and been reanimated by a medical team) emerges from the doorway and procedures to slaughter the SS guards, with Dolokhov finishing it off once and for all as it drags its bulletriddled carcass down the hallway.

Looting the corpses of the dead SS guards, Dolokhov, armed with a combat knife, hunts down and brutally kills Strasser. Moving through the air ducts, he manages to reach the surface and escape from the bunker, only to inadvertently set off a tripwire flare. The SS captain from earlier in the film and a small group of guards, plus a single reanimated corpse, set off in hot pursuit. Dolokhov manages to kill the SS guards and the creature pursuing him, and after another sharp fight he sets off back towards Russian lines, carrying the corpse of the final reanimated creature over his shoulder.

The film concludes by returning to the bar from the beginning as the old man, revealed to be Dolokhov, repeats his statement from the beginning of the movie. A man enters, and tries to coax Dolokhov into talking, showing him Hunt’s notebook from the first movie and buying him drinks. The film concludes with Dolokhov and the man taking a shot together, as Dolokhov finishes by firmly setting his drink down on the table; the Red Army medal glimmers within it as the film ends.

• Bryan Larkin as Dolokhov
• Iván Kamarás as Fyodor
• Michael McKell as SS Standartenführer Strasser
• Velibor Topic as Arkadi
• Laurence Possa as Osakin
• Ben Lambert as Rogers
• Alec Utgoff as Kostya
• Vince Docherty as Cpl. Klotz
• Gareth Morrison as Potrovsky
• Leo Horsfield as The Surgeon
• Vivien Taylor as The Nurse
• PJ Barnard as Nazi Officer
• Craig Smith and Steven Rae as Chess players

While creating the film Parker chose to focus on the medical aspect of the zombie soldiers, whereas the previous two films took a more supernatural and mechanical approach.[1] Exterior filming took place in Ripon, Yorkshire while interiors were shot on a stage near Glasgow, Scotland, and filming took place over a 28-day period.[3]

Critical reception for Rise of the Spetsnaz has been mixed.[4] We Got This Covered and Dread Central both panned the film,[5] and We Got This Covered commented that "Despite the addition of Russian special forces soldiers, the Outpost franchise is beginning to lose steam by falling into a dull state of Nazi zombie filled redundancy."[6] In contrast The List and Fangoria both gave more positive reviews for Rise of the Spetsnaz,[7] and Fangoria wrote that "Despite its flaws, RISE OF THE SPETSNAZ is still a fun watch, offering enough for action and horror fans alike. It’s bloody and brutal while sleek and respectful of its place within the franchise, and sure to please fans of the first two films as well as the unfamiliar."[8]

• Outpost: Rise of the Spetsnaz at IMDb