It's hard out there for an original horror movie. For every fluke that hits the jackpot, like Hereditary, The Babadook or It Follows, there's a slew of remakes, sequels and spin-offs that slaughter everything else that comes their way because of brand recognition, with little thought given to overall quality, at least in most cases.
That means that the lion's share of original horror flicks have an uphill battle when it comes to success, with the vast majority never even making it to theaters in the first place, leaving any sort of future popularity to the cult-driven masses. It's nothing new, either, as a lot of popular all-time faves were box office bombs at the time of their release, be it such unchallenged masterpieces as John Carpenter's The Thing or most of David Cronenberg's early work, like Shivers or Rabid.
Such is likely to be the case with Overlord, which certainly owes a debt of gratitude to those films, as well as Romero's zombie epics, particularly Day of the Dead, or even something like the Tarantino/Rodriguez crime/vampire flick mash-up From Dusk Till Dawn. Like that latter film, Overlord starts as one thing- in this case, a full throttle World War II-era war film- before completely morphing into something else, in this case, a variation of the mad scientist/zombie flick.
The fun begins, appropriately enough, on D-Day, as a group of paratroopers head into enemy territory in France, with the goal being to destroy a German radio tower embedded in a local church. This is, of course, easier said than done, as the Germans are taking out soldiers left and right, using then-state of the art weaponry. The film's impressive opening sequence is nothing less than horror's answer to a similar scene in Spielberg's classic Saving Private Ryan, only this one takes place in a plane flying into the battlefield, as gunfire and bombs crash down all around them.
Eventually, the damage to the plane is such that the surviving soldiers have to bail or die, as the plane is about to go down. We literally follow Private Boyce (Jovan Adepo, The Leftovers) as he jumps out of the plane and careens down into the war zone, tumbling and struggling with his parachute all the way, in one unique, thrilling shot that is quite unlike anything I've ever seen in any war movie, quite frankly, much less a horror film.
So, right off the bat, we, the viewers, know that we're not dealing with the average horror flick. The chaos only continues on the ground, with the subsequent battling ultimately leaving only four survivors: Privates Boyce, Tibbet (John Magaro, Orange is the New Black) and Chase (Iain De Caestecker, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.) and explosives expert Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell, Ingrid Goes West), the de facto commander after their squad leader is killed.
When they stumble across a local French woman, Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier, Boss Level), Ford orders her to take them to the vicinity of the church he's tasked with bringing down. She begrudgingly does, but Nazis are all over the place, forcing the group to hole up in her house, where they discover that her aunt (Meg Foster, They Live) is not looking good, the direct result of Nazi doctor experimentation, which involves a mysterious tar that is located underneath the village and which the scientists are mining to use for nefarious purposes.
Eventually, the group formulate a plan to infiltrate the church, all the while trying their best to elude their primary threat, a bloodthirsty, rapey Nazi by the name of Captain Wafner (Pilou Asbæk, Game of Thrones), who is ready and willing to do anything he has to do to defeat the group- including taking an experimental drug derived from the aforementioned tar that supposedly has the power to make people super-powered... but at a cost.
Things proceed from there, as the platoon encounter Nazis and the monstrous, zombie-like results of all their experimentation at every turn, doing their best to stay alive and complete their mission. Needless to say, not everyone makes it out alive in the bombastic finale, which dovetails into the announcement that the D-Day invasion was a success and the tide of war is turning in their favor.
This is a unique, fun movie with impressive production values that belie the relatively low budget (by Hollywood standards) of $38 million, which unfortunately, proved to be a bit high by horror movie standards, resulting in the film barely making back its budget with around $41 million worldwide- not exactly a blockbuster.
That's too bad, as the film is one of the better original horror flicks I've seen in quite a while- dare I say even better than Hereditary, which, lest we forget, nicked a substantial part of its plot from the Paranormal Activity franchise. (Don't even try to tell me differently.)
Overlord, on the other hand, is a pretty unique mélange of war and horror, which is not a combination one sees very often. I racked my brain, and about the only other ones I could come up with, sans internet help, were The Keep, Jacob's Ladder and the Dead Snow movies (sort of). I'm sure others slightly more informed than I am can come up with others, but regardless, it's not a combination one sees often, so for that reason alone, it's worth celebrating, given how hard it is to come up with something original these days- in any genre, quite frankly.
Overlord had quite a bit going for it, thanks to the involvement of über-producer J.J. Abrams, of Lost, Star Trek and Star Wars fame, who is known for liking a good hybrid genre piece, between this and the likes of Alias, Fringe, Super 8 and Cloverfield. Indeed, word on the street early on was that this film was connected to the Cloverfield universe, which later proved to not be the case, but got the film some early attention nonetheless, which is always a good thing.
As much as I like the film as it is, perhaps some small connection might not have been a bad thing, as it might have helped the film at the box office. As it stands, though, Overlord barely broke even, which is a real shame, as we could use more horror films like it- which is to say, original horror films that stand on their own, and aren't spin-offs or remakes or reboots or whatever.
The film was originally written by noted screenwriter Billy Ray, best-known for films like Shattered Glass, Flightplan, Captain Phillips and for co-writing The Hunger Games and for co-creating and writing for the TV shows Earth 2 and The Last Tycoon. Abrams and Ray came up with the story, then Ray hammered out a screenplay, with another screenwriter, Mark L. Smith (the Vacancy films, The Revenant) brought in later on to punch it up a bit.
In the director's chair is Australian filmmaker Julius Avery, who made the underrated crime thriller Son of a Gun and will be working with Abrams again on the upcoming The Heavy and has been recruited to helm a Flash Gordon reboot, so his career is obviously on the rise. He certainly does a great job here, with that eye-popping, pulse-pounding opening scene, as well as the progressively more and more intense later scenes, as the horror element comes more into the film.
Shout outs as well to the two ace cinematographers, Laurie Rose (best-known for his claustrophobic work with director Ben Wheatley, which includes Kill List and High-Rise, as well as the recent Pet Sematary remake) and Fabian Wagner (Justice League, Game of Thrones). Not sure which of them was responsible for that awe-inspiring opening sequence, but good work all around, regardless.
Though the cast is comprised of mostly lesser-known actors, they're all really good in their respective roles, with Russell and Asbæk the real standouts, though Adepo makes for a likeable, relatable, sympathetic leading man, who always tries to do the right thing, even when it leads to trouble, as it almost always does. Russell, it should be mentioned, channels his famous dad, Kurt, more than ever here. If you don't think of The Thing during that explosive finale, then you must not have seen it, which should be rectified immediately.
I just loved this one, and it almost certainly would have made the list of my favorite movies of the year, had I seen it sooner. Of course, I realize that, given my bitching earlier, that I'm part of the problem, as I didn't see it in the theatres, either, but I'm obviously not the only one.
As such, I have the opportunity to rectify that now, by giving this one my highest recommendation, especially to horror fans looking for something a little different, or even war movie fans that want to see something they've never seen before in a war film. Trust me, you will see things here that you've never seen in any war movie, ever!
By all means, check this out ASAP! 😀
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