Outlander is a 2008 action film[4] written and directed by Howard McCain, starring Jim Caviezel, Sophia Myles, Jack Huston, John Hurt, and Ron Perlman.

The plot is loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf, adapted to a science fiction backstory involving a spaceship crashing in Iron Age Norway.

The only surviving occupant – a humanoid alien – retrieves a distress beacon and a computer which explains that he is on Earth, a "seed" colony that his people have abandoned.

Wulfric interrogates the "outlander", who identifies himself as Kainan, claiming he is from the north, and states that he is hunting a dragon.

Kainan identifies it as a "Moorwen", a predatory creature which caused his ship to crash and now will hunt men and animals alike.

When Kainan is taken with a hunting party to find the Moorwen, he kills a gigantic bear that had slain some of the hunters, proving himself to the others who begin treating him as a part of their tribe.

Kainan devises a plan to build a huge pit just inside the village entrance, fill it with whale oil and leave wooden shields floating on the surface.

Erik, the orphaned boy that Kainan has begun looking after, alerts Hrothgar, who is killed as the women and children escape.

At that time Karl Urban was in talks to star in the film,[7] but James Caviezel emerged as the lead when production was finally announced in September 2006.

By this point, the production had settled on Halifax and Nine Mile River, Nova Scotia, Canada, with a 10-week shooting schedule beginning in October 2006.

McCain praised Tatopoulos: "He brought the right amount of fierceness, sensuality, the sense of personality and a sentient kind of intelligence to [the Moorwen] that was perfect."

The site's critical consensus reads, "Schizophrenic in subject and lackluster in execution, Outlander might have trouble finding the cult audience for which it was built.

[12] Ray Bennett of The Hollywood Reporter said, "it's entertaining nonsense with major league special effects, larger-than-life characters and inventive monsters that draw on the 'Aliens' and 'Predator' models, being terrifying but also vaguely sympathetic.

"[13] Derek Elley of Variety said that the "script tries to build up a full range of heroic characters in conflict but is let down by workaday dialogue and direction that doesn't conjure any special atmosphere.

Only Hurt, who can always be relied on to turn the most basic dialogue metal into something resembling gold, comes close to giving the picture any verbal style.