Film Review: OVERLORD (2018)

 OVERLORD (2018) USA/Canada 1hr 50mins

Director: Julius Avery

"I know nothing of what the Doctor does." - Wafner

"What do you do to the people taken to the Church?" - Ford

"They have been given a purpose."- Wafner

I feel like I may get some stick for this movie but I don't care too much as I really do rate this half war, half zombie/monster movie. Set in June 1944, a group of soldiers are dropped into France to find a small village and destroy a radio tower at a church that is blocking the radio signal. This all sounds fairly straight forward and non zombie right? So it's just as well that this church also houses an underground laboratory that the Nazis are using to experiment on the villagers. Test subjects have been seen being burned en masse or if they do make it out they are deformed beyond recognition, barely human. Once the remaining soldiers in the team make the perilous trip from the landing site to the village; Ford (Wyatt Russell), Boyce (Jovan Adepo), Tibbet (John Magaro) and Chase (Iain De Caestecker) run into Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) a local French girl who is already being terrorised by the Germans that have attacked her village. She takes the American soldiers into her home. This is when things start to shift into monster territory from war as the link between the church, the villagers and the blocked radio signal all start to rearrange themselves to introduce a sinister twist. The introduction of the evil German commander Wafner (Pilou Asbaek) who will do anything it takes to bring about "the thousand year reich" only fuels the soldiers fire to bring down all that is within the churches walls. It falls down to these few soldiers to complete the mission whilst having to deal with the zombies and help Chloe to keep her family together.

This big budget Paramount Pictures release is the first Bad Robot productions feature to carry an R rating by the MPAA. It certainly is one of the goriest movies to hit the cinema screens in a while. Not only this but it is absolutely exhausting to watch as the intrepid soldiers go from one extreme experience to the next with only one very brief pause for respite. From the opening sequence on the plane where they are forced to jump out whilst it is being blown up, to dodging landmines and avoiding the Germans. You are already half spent by the time the zombies start groaning but excited to discover what crazy shit is now about to unfold. 

So the zombie/monster things might take a little while to appear but when they do they are a sight to behold! There is a great undertone of Romeros Dr. Logan from DAY OF THE DEAD (1985) here especially in the underground lab scenes and more recently FRANKENSTEINS ARMY (2013). Which has a very similar plot to this for sure but FRANKENSTEINS ARMY aires more on the side of monsters created by splicing humans with machinery rather than here with OVERLORD that focuses more on creating the ultimate undead soldier via disection and mysterious viscous materials. The main thing here is that both OVERLORD and FRANKENSTEINS ARMY are set during WWII and involve crazy nazis experimenting on humans. With OVERLORD the evil doctor here is Dr. Schmidt (Erich Redman) who is taking people apart whilst keeping them alive with a serum he has created. The result being a reanimated corpse that feels no pain and has super human strength. They are ultra aggressive and often have bulging veins and blood shot eyes. There is evidence of them wanting to bite and there is proof of them possibly consuming other humans but that is not shown on screen. What we do see is a whole host of gruesome wounds, deformities, blood and other bodily fluids and a couple of wailing heads. The graphics and FX are really impressive and I'm happy to say more practical then you might think. Yes, there is CGI, especially over the first half of the movie but practical methods were also used. Speaking of the plane sequence the plane itself was jimmied to a gimbal so it really did tilt and they did blow up the front of it to get realistic reactions from the actors. The scene where Chase gets injected with the serum is incredible to watch and involves him snapping his head back so quick bones protrude from his chest and neck, this was done practically with puppetry and animatronics and it really does make you wince. There are a few gruesome reveals of a womans head and spine plus some giant freaky embryonic sacks suspended in the air containing all manner of unfortunate creatures.

The characters are very likeable and have a lot of personality. Jovan Adepo is humble in his role and wholly route worthy! Wyatt Russell starts off as a hard ass but shows heart towards the end. Pilou Asbaek is maniacal and disturbing throughout. The supporting cast of Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Iain De Caestecker, Dominic Applewhite and Bokeem Woodbine... even Gianny Taufer as the young boy Paul were really awesome! Blink and you'll miss her but Meg Foster pops up as Chloes ailing aunt too!

On the whole this is an insanely, gruesome, wild ride from start to finish. I would have preferred more zombies and I'm sure there is some debate over the validity of the zombies but I am on board with this and I love the nods to zombie and horror classics going right back to Mary Shelleys novel FRANKENSTEIN, and of course DAY OF THE DEAD! OVERLORD is tireless, relentless and a ton of fun!! I score OVERLORD 4 brains out of 5!

OVERLORD is available to stream on Prime and on DVD and BLU RAY.