Whenever a movie makes me remain quiet in fear of alerting deadly soldiers or creatures to my location, I automatically find myself sucked into every scene. This happened with A Quiet Place, Don’t Breathe—and now Overlord.
Made by Bad Robot Productions, the spicy company behind Cloverfield, Super 8, Star Trek and Star Wars, Overlord adds something new to the horror genre. And the team behind this, well, they are always prepared going into a project. The script was ready and waiting before Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) came aboard to helm. Under his direction, Overlord details young soldiers risking their lives for a mission for which they were never trained.
“Three months ago, I was cutting grass in my front yard. Now I’m here.” These words came from the young soldier Boyce (Jovan Adepo). The here he spoke of was France, World War 2, the eve of Demolition Day, meaning that he and many other soldiers were far away from the American soil they called home. On paper, their mission was simple: sneak into a Nazi compound and plant a signal for the Allied forces to attack said compound. But the mission began with gallons of bloodshed, leaving just a handful of mostly inexperienced soldiers to carry out the orders. Before long, the orders were amended, especially when a beautiful woman, a small boy, and a zombie infestation add to the dangers these soldiers are facing.
Seeing Nazis experiment on humans gave many viewers more reason to root for their demise. I wondered what was the draw to make a story about Nazis and zombies. While I have seen this concept before, I’ve never seen it progress in this way. Forced injections. Super soldiers. Grey Worm from Game of Thrones blowing up like a piñata. I wish I could’ve sat in on the pitch for this film.
And speaking of Grey Worm and other characters, to see the cast that came aboard made Overlord even more worthwhile. It brought actors together from shows and movies that I have enjoyed in recent years. With Game of Thrones (GoT) ending, many people still yearn for face time with some of the actors. Overlord features two: Jacob Anderson (Dawson), who played Grey Worm in GoT, and Pilou Asbaek (Wagner), who played Euron Greyjoy. Then, moving to shows with present-day themes, we get Iain De Caestecker from Agents of Shield and John Magaro from The Umbrella Academy. Jovan Adepo (who plays Boyce) hails from 2016’s Fences. But above all, the little boy Gianny Taufer, relatively new to acting, stole my heart. He was a cutie, one that I could hug for an entire day and never get bored.
But stepping away from cuties, my only problem with Overlord is that I wanted more zombies. The zombies were ready to rip heads off and feast on flesh; however, I can probably count on both hands the number of zombies in the film. I watched the end credits unfulfilled, longing for a Marvel ending where someone pops up after the credits and says, “You want zombies, you lonely b*stard? Well, check out Overlord 2 next summer.” But nothing came; just more longing.
Even with the limited presence of zombies, Overlord is well worth a watch. The film has heart, action, and thrills. You’ll see this in the first scene, where you fall in love with characters before quickly watching them blow up or plummeting to their deaths. If that’s not a way to reel you in, I don’t know what is.
Have you checked out Overlord? Let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
Check out the trailer:
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