Overlord Review

J.J. Abrams’ production company Bad Robot is synonymous with high concept film and TV, making Lost and the Cloverfield franchise. They combine the war and horror genres with their latest film, Overlord.

On the eve of D-Day, American paratroopers are sent behind enemy lines to help the invasion. One squad is tasked to destroy a radio tower on an old church. Most of the squad is killed, leaving only five soldiers to complete the mission. Once the squad reaches the village, they discover some true horrors being committed by the Nazis.

J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot notoriously use mystery box marketing and bold marketing tricks – sometimes to great effect, like with the Cloverfield franchise, other times being seen as unconvincing misdirection, i.e. Star Trek Into Darkness. There were rumours that Overlord would be part of the Cloverfield franchise, which Abrams denied. I went into Overlord pretty much blind, and I was pleasantly surprised.

Overlord is basically a grindhouse-genre mash-up that was made by a major production company and had a decent budget. Overlord was written by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith, who have solid reputations – their credits include Captain Phillips and The Revenant. Julius Avery directed the film, making his second feature film, and he shows he is a director with potential. This creative team made something intense and special.

Ray, Smith, and Avery play on war movie and horror clichés. The main characters fit into war movie archetypes – Ed Boyce (Jovan Adepo) is a nervous raw recruit, Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell) is the gruff veteran, Tibbet (John Magaro) is an obnoxious Italian-American and Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) was a villager who helps the soldiers out. Boyce has the most development because he’s a kind-hearted soldier without a killer instinct, and it’s his compassion that drives him. He clashes with the morally ambiguous Cole, whose focus is just to destroy the radio tower. Pilou Asnæk was gloriously over the top as the SS officer who terrorises the French village.

Overlord works both as a war and horror film. The opening with the paratroopers flying into a barrage of flak and bullets was impactful, and the film supplies plenty of wartime action in its first and third acts. There was an unsettling atmosphere when Boyce breaches the SS base and sees what they have been doing to residents of the village. There was a lot of body horror on display, which allowed for some eerie images and the dark 1940s set dressing and medical equipment added to the body shock. Avery and his team made Overlord a visually strong film both as an action film and a horror film, using a fair amount of continuous takes and lots of the red stuff.

2018 has been an excellent year for the horror genre with the releases of A Quiet Place and Hereditary due to their atmosphere. Overlord goes in a different direction – it was unashamed schlock. There was a slow build-up, but once the Nazi plans are revealed, Overlord holds no bars. It is gloriously grotesque; it even earned an 18 rating in the UK for violence, which is rare these days. It satisfied my inner sadist as the red stuff flies out and people get mutated.

There is a subgenre of Nazi horror and Nazi zombies which is normally the preserve of B-movies and video games. The Dead Snow series is the best-known cinematic offering whilst Wolfenstein and Call of Duty‘s zombie mode are what gamers know.  Overlord taps into a rich well of Nazi experimentation, weird science and interest in the Occult.

Overlord will properly be a cult hit, and fans of B-movies and horror films will enjoy it. They will be like Romans at the games, baying for blood.