Overlord movie review

Here's what you need to know; the date is June 5th, 1944, the allied invasion of Nazi occupied France is just hours away and it is the mission of a squad of Paratroopers to help make that invasion possible by destroying a radio tower. But when their plane is shot down, they land in a hell that's worse than anything they could have anticipated, buried beneath their objective is one of the Nazis' greatest and most terrible secrets, a secret that could ensure the Reich reigns supreme if it isn't destroyed.
What better film is there to watch on Remembrance Day, a horror film about American paratroopers vs. Nazi zombies, yeah, it is a bit much. But I've been pumped for Overlord since back when it was Cloverfield 4, I always hoped that this film would be what I wanted it to be; a creepy, violent, gory war film with zombies and Nazis and Tommy guns, and having watched it in the tiny, sweaty back screen of my local cinema, I was left very, very satisfied by what I watched.

Overlord's first moments dispelled any idea that the film was going to just be B-movie shlock, with a loud, violent action sequence as the plane is shot down, a sequence that felt less like Call of Duty and more life Fury, which is never a bad thing. And when I say loud, I really mean loud, I don't know if it was just Screen 9's sound system or the film itself, but the ground was literally shaking, my seat was rumbling for the entire runtime of the film, and every gunshot was felt, literally felt, and literally every shot, and I somehow got used to it, in fact, intentional or not, it almost certainly added a lot to this film's effectiveness. The film does an amazing job of throwing you into the conflict right from the start; purging any notion of safety or relief within the first ten minutes, there's one death in particular that comes out of nowhere, right while the guy was talking about his ambitions as an author, which is not just a punch in the balls, but a clever way of letting you know that no one, not even our main hero, is safe. In not exactly a ground-breaking move, we have Boyce, our main guy who, over the course of the film, goes from soft and weak to a hardened hero, an archetype? yes, does it work in Overlord? yes, but as I've said before, archetypes exist for a reason. Then there's Chloe, who I love simply because there's a scene in the film where she takes a flamethrower and torches the shit out a monster, is it weird that I like brunettes with flamethrowers so much. In all seriousness though, she makes most of the film's quieter moments; unlike some women in films these days *cough* The Predator *cough,* her involvement in the conflict is done with subtlety, as we are both told and shown what the Nazis have done to her, making the moment she finally picks up a gun very satisfying, and making her motivation for doing so very human. Then you have the rest of the squad, and you already know what to expect, the arsehole leader who always follows orders, the snarky shit talker, the inexperienced kid you want to root for, the gang's all here. Like Boyce, they're archetypes, but like Boyce, they get the job done, the shit talker has some really funny lines, and the arsehole leader was a lot of fun too. One subversion, and a twisted one at that, is the inexperienced kid, though to go any further there would spoil the moment.

Then you have the villains, and they're Nazis so you already know the drill; they're sadistic, heartless brutes to whom the most unimaginable cruelty is just another day at work, and oh boy does the film not hold back. Overlord's setting, the small French town, is a place that feels wrong from the minute they arrive, the Nazi occupation having transformed the quaint and pleasant environment into a dark, oppressive prison, and the film has no hesitation in reminding you just how dickish the Nazis are, being antagonistic and abusive to the French civilians under their boot like a gang of school yard bullies; it is implied that our main villain, Wafner, has a 'relationship' with Chloe where he comes and rapes her whenever he wants, yeah, this film really holds nothing back, and surprise, you end up really, really hating this guy. And seemingly taking a page from Wolfenstein's playbook, the film has a lot of fun in its horror, playing off of the fucked up shit the Nazis did and taking a sharp turn into science fiction that feels straight out of something like Wolfenstein or Black Ops Zombies, and there's even a creepy old castle, how fitting. But what's interesting is that while film has and absolutely delivers on the Nazi zombies, that's not the entire film. Overlord is a war film first and a science fiction film second, which might sound like a bummer, but since the action scenes are so intense and fun, it doesn't matter. The climactic assault on the compound is awesome from beginning to end, delivering on both a creepy and gory horror film and an intense war film. But this does come with a catch; the film's first half only delivers on the war and horror in short bursts, taking place mostly around Chloe's home in the village as the Squad hide from the Nazis and plan their attack. Things are still going on however, as we get a very, very creepy tour of the compound and an awesome demonstration of the power of the Nazis' zombie juice, and even in the slower moments as the squad try to sneak around the Nazis, I was entertained thanks to the film's excellent grasp on how to build atmosphere.

And that leads us into my favourite thing about Overlord, the horror. Overlord isn't just a film that's 18 because, it really earns that rating, because this film is fucked up, and I adore it for that. Granted, it's not a very subtle movie, the vast majority of its horror is the result of graphic imagery and jumpscares, but for once, I actually don't mind the jumpscares because of how they are used and the imagery that accompanies them. The scene from the trailer with the wall is a scene that I wasn't expecting to the scared by, since I knew that he'd look in the hole and have something pop up at him, but what popped up was downright disturbing, far more so than I was expecting. That can be said of most of this film's graphic imagery, which, like the film's portrayal of the Nazis, holds nothing back, the experiments Boyce finds in the lab are creepy as all hell, and the violence is brutal and unapologetic. The zombies in this film are some of the coolest zombies I've seen in years, unlike mere rotting, shambling corpses, these fuckers are fast, powerful and absolutely insane, their bodies mutilated and deformed into uncanny monsters, I mean, just look at the guy in the trailer who breaks his own neck, the way his neck then snaps back into place at a crooked angle, tearing and compressing the skin around his neck and face in the process, it's amazing and disgusting. The trailers might have actually given too much away in the horror, but I don't mind, because when you're seeing it on the big screen, it's effective as shit. That's the kind of horror you're in for in Overlord, gore, lots and lots of gore, a showcase of amazing visual effects and a collection of fucked up imaginations. But as I stated earlier, the zombies aren't the whole film, so while the imagery is disturbing, it never gets stale or overstays its welcome, giving you just enough nightmare fuel to keep you going while plodding along with our heroes' main goal, destroying the tower. But for how unpredictable the films starts out being, the film does have a fair few conveniences in its finale, perhaps too many, and the film falls back on a couple of clichés that do distract from the overall film; such as the heroic sacrifice and the dumb kid who, for some reason, decides to just idly walk out onto a battlefield, which has always been a completely retarded thing for anyone to do in a film, even a dumb kid.

They have been given a purpose
Overlord really scratched an itch for me in a way I was hopeful but doubtful that it would. For once, I went into a film with a clear image of what I wanted and walked out completely satisfied; it delivers on the horror and then some, it delivers on the action and then some, and that's really all I wanted. The film isn't perfect thanks to some of the trappings it finds itself in, especially in the finale, but that doesn't change the fact that I was on the edge of my seat for most the film, that I winced about a dozen times at its imagery, and that when I walked out of the screening, I had a massive smile on my face. Overlord is fucking awesome, and it's definitely worth watching.