“A woman fighting her demons, and the demons are winning” is the premise for Joe Lo Truglio‘s directorial debut, Outpost (2023). Beth Dover plays a victim of a brutal attack from her partner and tries to heal by taking a job as a volunteer lookout in an Idaho state park. The rather limited-cast film follows Beth throughout her three-month shift, where she finds that her PTSD gets the best of her. Known for his role as Charles Boyle in Brooklyn Nine-Nine, Truglio’s “horror” film explores how PTSD changes our perception of reality and cleverly plays off of the idea of the male and female gaze. Despite its strong concept, the film’s third act treads into the realm of the absurd with a rather forced resolution.

The film opens with a badly bruised Kate (Dover) doing some work at a busy restaurant. Kate observes the environment from above, watching every individual with her one good eye. The film quickly establishes itself as partly surreal as every customer stops to stare at Kate, forcing us into her distorted perspective of the world post-attack. Unable to handle her visions and fear of the people around her, Kate calls in a favor with her friend Nickie (Ta’Rea Campbell) and her estranged brother Earl (Ato Essandoh) for a job as a wildfire lookout in a secluded outpost.

When we get to the station house with Beth, we meet a local townsman, Reggie (Dylan Baker), and the ever-so-slightly fat and creepy Ranger Dan (Dallas Roberts). Truly the only two other people Kate is able to regularly interact with during her three months of solitude. Her job, “stick to the routine.” Watch for smoke, report the weather, rinse, sleep, repeat. As the first and second acts unfold, Kate struggles with her loneliness, her memories of the attack, and her trust in the people around her.

As mentioned before, we enter and reenter Kate’s reality. The film uses a variety of POV shots, extreme close-ups, camera angles, and techniques to distort any sense of safety for Kate. The film successfully plays with the real and seamlessly takes us in and out of a state of anxiety, fear, peace, and confusion. It’s a very interesting and compelling depiction of PTSD. I’ll admit the first two acts, where we watch Kate struggle with the mundane routine and isolation, were really absorbing. The third act is where I find myself hesitant. (Major spoilers ahead.)

Kate befriends a female hiker (Becky Ann Baker), and the two discuss their past abusive relationships. We learn that Kate has a long history of abuse, including childhood trauma from her pedophilic uncle. The hiker, Bertha, helps Kate gain confidence when the two break into Reggie’s home and use his guns. As Bertha teaches Kate to hunt and survive, she also fuels Kate’s suspicions that Earl, Dan, and Reggie are all out to get her. Things spiral out of control when we learn that Bertha is a figment of Kate’s imagination. In reality, she is the conjuring of Reggie’s late wife, whom Kate now thinks was murdered. In the end, we find that the most dangerous thing in Kate’s world is herself when she goes on almost a comedic killing spree. Her friend, Nickie, finally traps her in the outpost she was so aggressively trying to defend, and we can only hope she’ll get the help she needs.

This is a rather ambitious film. Laura Mulvey famously defined the male gaze, but Truglio tries to visualize the fear of said gaze. Rather than objectifying the woman, Truglio allows Kate to look back and confront the fear a woman has when a man looks at her a certain way. She takes back her sense of power by protecting the outpost–herself. The only issue is her own trauma causes her to create danger rather than recognize true threats. It’s truly an interesting way to open discussion on domestic abuse and the cycles of abuse. Labeling it a horror film may be misleading because the scariest thing in this film was a white man, not a murderous woman.

I’ll admit, a man writing a film about a woman struggling with PTSD is a slippery slope. I’ve mentioned in previous reviews (including my review of Andrew Dominik’s Blonde) that the male interpretation of female trauma cannot be done. (Or at least, it’s really hard to do.) However, this film was careful not to sexualize or exploit Kate. It’s hard to say whether or not Kate truly took back her agency. On one hand, Kate did kill two supposed predators. Dan was shown to have taken pictures of Kate’s behind, and Reggie was a suspected murderer. On the other hand, Kate had no control over her mind, so the dangers of the men around her could have been completely a figment of her imagination. If we take the latter, she is now reduced to a dangerous, mad woman.

This is where I find some minor faults in the film. Some of the details didn’t quite fit in with what I assume Truglio was trying to do. Dan taking pictures of Kate’s behind was real, as it was shown separately from Kate’s experiences. However, Reggie killing his wife was only an assumption Kate made off of hearsay and her own fears. The tea Reggie gave her to “calm her nerves” was never taken, so her suspicions that it was a date rape drug were only a product of imagination. Only Dan’s pictures, which Kate never saw, were real in the diegesis. This outlying detail made it hard to decipher whether or not Kate created all of the danger or whether Kate truly was taking back some sense of power.

I can’t help but think of Fennell’s Promising Young Woman (2020). A female takes back some of the power from the male. Both films have to do with looking and the dangers of the male gaze. What I found an issue with is that Truglio doesn’t give Kate enough true danger or even perceived concrete danger to justify her murderous finale. In the end, everything is a product of her imagination, and her PTSD causes her to end up the villain. Yes, it is an ambitious way to depict PTSD and how it distorts a sense of reality, but Kate is never given the chance to defend herself from something real. Thus, the ending isolates this story as a tale of one woman in the woods rather than opening up a conversation about what domestic abuse and PTSD do to a woman. It’s possible that Truglio wanted to keep this story as an isolated horror film. If that’s the case, I would have left out the abuse and just focused on the dangers of isolation.

Overall, the hour-and-a-half film was enjoyable. Its label as a “horror” film can truly only go to the last twenty minutes. The rest is a thriller that watches a now-isolated woman deal with her demons. The performances were not groundbreaking, and the final act almost became comedic with the use of the score and Dover’s clumsy running. However, I find Truglio’s debut to be an ambitious attempt at genre-bending and depicting female trauma. For a debut from someone I associate with comedy, there are some growing pains, but I expect great things to come.

Review Courtesy of Sara Ciplickas