Overlord

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!

Perfect blend of WW2 action, zombies and gore. Don't go into this expecting Oscar nominations, and you'll enjoy the ride. It was exactly what I expected- I was entertained for close to 2 hrs. Got my money's worth.

The opening scene has nuances a of B-Movie/Cult film, not from a lack of quality though but because of its gritty and raw feel.

You start to get your hopes up that this could be something special, but at the same time you are secretly praying that it doesn't nose dive; excuse the pun.

However, the moment you see the visual effects all doubts are washed away that this is going to be some low-rent waste of time and all throughout the film the effects are top grade and filled with realism. It's was no surprise to later discover the visual effects were by Industrial Light & Magic, among others.

The acting is excellent, no overdone or overly cheesy lines. Jovan Adepo demonstrated excellent control and great balance in his part that would have been easy to mess up, whilst Mathilde Ollivier excelled in her role. The whole cast was very well chosen and they played their parts admirably.

Locations and sets were realistic and coupled with excellent cinematography, it really did draw you into the film and the lack of "Hollywood" polish was a refreshing change; it brought a level of realism you rarely see these days in films.

There was the odd scene where you think that they would never have done this and it causes a little frustration, but it is quickly corrected by subsequent events going against the anticipated and you never quite know who is or isn't going to die.

The film overall is nicely broken up into various scenes and they are all well paced and retains your attention.

A very underrated film and I enjoyed every moment of it.

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."

I saw this film at the Philadelphia Film Festival and I had a good time watching it. It's a very intense movie with a lot of action throughout; it never has a moment where it calms down. I like that aspect of it but I can definitely see it being sensory overload for a lot of people. It's also quite graphic, and sometimes it's a little gratuitous and overly gory. I think the film relies a little too much on jump scares but the atmosphere is pretty creepy anyway. I think towards the end the film gets pretty over-the-top and silly, but I think it's an interesting setting and it's very well-shot and the VFX are pretty good.