Overlord

It's D-day. A squad of paratroopers are tasked with destroying a radio tower on top of a church. Their plane is shot down. After their leader gets shot by the Nazis and one steps on a landmine, four survivors remain. They find refuge with a scavenger named Chloe. The Nazis are experimenting on the locals at the church.

It's a horror story within a historical event. It has a good amount of action and thrills. The characters are compelling. It's always nice to have Nazi villains. It may not be completely new. It is not trying to be break new ground. It's a well-made B-movie and that's commendable.

Overlord is one of those films that starts as one thing but then becomes something else. Following some Allied paratroopers as they land behind enemy lines toward the end of WW2, they come across a small town next to their target - a church with a radio tower on it. With the help of a local family, they must somehow get in there and take it down. However, they soon discover that the building also houses something far worse than Nazi soldiers...

I must say I was genuinely surprised by how good this film actually is. I was expecting the war aspect to be little more than a backdrop to the horror, but even during the build up this actually has a stab at being a decent war film in its own right. Then the horror starts and the film loses none of its intensity, action or pacing. The story is interesting, the characters are believable and the special effects are actually really good. Imagine if the modern Wolfenstein video games were made into a film - that is pretty much what this feels like and I thought it was far better than it has any right to be. Give it a go!

Overlord is essentially a B-movie with a Hollywood budget, great action, and a TON of gore. I really enjoyed this movie quite a bit, especially in the opening scene, which was shot very well. This movie is an action-horror set during World War II when a bunch of American Soldiers discover that the Germans are up to something sinister in one of their bases, and that is all I will say about the plot. It's awesome to watch. The films cast doesn't consist of any A-Listers or Superstars, but has a lot of recognizable faces such as Wyatt Russell, (who's performance reminded me a lot of his dad Kurt in The Thing), Pilous Asbaek and Jacob Anderson of Game of Thrones fame, John Magaro and Bokeem Woodbine, and newcomers Jovan Adepo and Mathilde Olliver as the leads. To sum it up, Overlord is the type of movie that is going to develop a fanbase years from now, it is very fun and will satisfy those both looking for intense action and gory horror, and I can easily recommend this. We can all thank Julius Avery for directing such a fun movie and J.J Abrhams for deciding to NOT turn this film into a Cloverfield movie.

Fun war movie with a horror twist. On its face, it is a procedural military mission - get in and do the thing to support the impending Allied invasion. The horror twist comes when the soldiers discover some strange stuff happening in the village. Medical experiments are being performed to transform normal humans into super soldiers. The mission now becomes twofold: destroy the tower and destroy the lab! Nothing particularly special or innovative about the story, but it was wildly entertaining and enjoyable. Very exciting edge-of-your-seat action scenes, well-performed roles, top-notch special effects, and solid jump scares. We watched it in the Dolby theater at AMC Metreon in SF. It was super loud and the place was rocking!

If you want to go in to watching this film without seeing the trailer, then don't read any reviews - including this one. There are no spoilers beyond what the trailer shows.

I make that opening claim because if you hadn't seen the trailer, you wouldn't know of the dual-genre nature of Overlord. The genre shift to full-blown 'zombies-but-not-quite' action comes after 75 minutes of truly brilliant wartime drama with some moderate scares. The opening scenes of the paratroopers entrance to the war-torn French countryside is a particular highlight for its chaotic, intense and disorientating depiction of what it must've been like for those who did the deed for real in WW2.

The horror element begins to build early on but is never an indication of the upcoming genre shift (if you've not seen the trailer, at least) until the point (From Dusk to Dawn style) where it's made clear that we're not in Kansas anymore. The only bummer I can think of is the film falls into the trap of a predictable final 30 minutes. With all the enjoyment had before then, it's so disappointing to feel let down at the last hurdle.

The soundtrack is immense, the cinematography is brooding without being dark (a style which works for both of the film's genres), and the CGI special effects are affectingly convincing. Don't expect great things from the script (which includes several awful one-liner comebacks), but I think this film will go down as one of the great zombie films of recent years, and may even be noted for its even better turn as a war film.

Best quote: "What is this?!" - "Our greatest achievement. With it, we create super-Nazis; a thousand year army and it's thousand year soldiers."