Overlord

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Here we have something I consider to be a bit of a hidden gem within this Fall's releases. This is a decent combination of war movie and zombie movie, with a solid cast of relative newcomers, plenty of gruesome violence, and some edge-of-your-seat action and suspense. So yeah, one could say I quite enjoyed it.

The film opens up on the Eve of D-Day, as a group of paratroopers is preparing to head out on a mission to destroy a radio tower. The plane is shot down, and the squad is forced to bail out early, providing us with one of the coolest, most intense falling scenes I've seen in recent history.

For the most part, we follow a young man named Boyce (Jovan Adepo), who eventually ends up finding his Corporal, Ford (Wyatt Russell) among a few others. With these few remaining paratroopers, they continue on their mission. However, Boyce soon ends up discovering, quite by accident, some of the Nazi's more intense experimentation which, yes, leads to basically the creation of zombies - but not really your typical zombies, either, which is nice, because let's face it, the zombie Nazi idea is pretty played out.

This one plays out a bit more like (dare I say it?) an 'Indiana Jones' film, in that the Nazis are showing their more occult side. They're really trying to make powerful, biological weapons that are seemingly invulnerable; a little something to add to their already powerful army. This is a film that sort of lets us peek behind the curtain and get a horrific fantasy idea of what Nazis may have been up to back then with some of their darker experimentation, which indeed WAS a reality.

I think what I admired most about this one, however, is that it reaches this incredible balance. Between the horrors of war that everyone experienced back then, and some fantasy horror aspects, the film manages to pose the question of what's more terrifying in such a situation, the war everyone experienced, or whatever behind the scenes human experimentation that the Nazis really did. It's effective in allowing your imagination to explore the possibilities of death back then, and in the end, it was all very horrific and there was no real way around it.

If you happen to be a horror fan, this is a title worth exploring. I'd even recommend trying to catch it on the big screen before it leaves, because it hasn't exactly been doing gangbusters at the box office. Yeah, a lot of the film is pretty out there at times, but all in all, it was something sort of right up my alley for when I'm looking for a good, solid horror flick. It MIGHT even make my Year-End Top 10.

5/5

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