Directed by: Julius Avery
Written by: Billy Ray. Mark L. Smith
Starring: Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier
For the first thirty minutes of the movie, Overlord depicts the shock and loss and monstrosity of man in war competently enough that the easy cliches could be forgiven and it could have continued as a decent straight war movie. Of course, then the Nazi super soldier zombies get involved; it's not a change I mind too much, especially since the film somehow manages to preserve the same gritty tone without feeling completely at odds with what it becomes, but the film essentially trades one set of competently executed tropes for another.
The set-up is simple enough: American soldiers on the night before D-Day must take down a radio tower behind enemy lines. On the way to the tower, we get just about every WW2 Movie archetype and cliche, from the hard and loud sergeant who seems born for the war, to the plucky soldier who gets a sudden and meaningless death to cement the uncaring nature of war, to the civilians living under the Nazi thumb who are often just used to illustrate a point about how monstrous the Nazis are. None of these are revolutionary in design or the best examples of their kind, but the use of each of them in the story is supported by strong film techniques. The sudden death of the plucky young soldier and the atrocities committed upon civilians are presented with visceral shock and sombre silence, and they spur a handful of small character arcs in the process. Again, there's nothing that hasn't been done before, but this film manages to do them well enough.
When the film takes a right turn in to Nazi super soldier zombie territory there's a few tonal shifts without a complete overhaul, as thriller turns to horror and the shock of real violence is replaced with the general schlock and abandon that comes with blowing up Nazis, especially Nazi super soldier zombies. This isn't new, either, but the tropes continue to competently support the arcs of the remaining characters and provide a constant sense of tense horror that builds excellently upon the film's initial thrills. That's part of why the transition works so well: regardless of whether the film wants a gritty scene of soldiers treading through a minefield, or a chase ripped right out of a monster movie, the film maintains an air of tension consistent enough to override the inherent differences in emotion evoked from either scene. Regardless of why you feel tense, the movie succeeds in making you feel tense.
Credit where credit is due, the film makes the most out of what it has once it steps in to horror territory as well. The body horror has visceral, disgusting detail so striking that it fills the mind, even if it's hard to look at. It's this effects work that help keep the tone of the film semi-serious despite the content it delves in to by this point of the movie: everything from the bones shuffling themselves inside the body to a face slowly healing after being blown apart looks just real enough to be horrifying rather than hilarious. The effects team are the real heroes of this movie.
The Short Version: Overlord handles the jumps between taught "horrors of war" thriller and "Nazi super soldier zombies" schlock fairly well, mostly because of a good cast and because the film focuses on the tension of both scenarios.
Rating: 6.5/10
Published December 8th, 2018
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