Overlord is the incredibly, gleefully R-rated war/horror movie directed by Julius Avery and produced by JJ Abrams, about a small group of soldiers on a mission to take out a German tower on French soil during WWII.
Jovan Adepo stars as Ed Boyce, a young, fresh-faced, and kind-hearted private just trying to survive one horrible night. The rest of his team includes, among others: Wyatt Russell as Ford, an absolute animal of a man, John Magaro as Tibbet, a motor-mouth without a filter, and Iain De Caestecker (best known as Leo Fitz from Agents of SHIELD) as Chase, a war photographer who's too pure and innocent for this world. Mathilde Ollivier excels as Chloe Laurent, a headstrong young woman trapped in the crossfire covering her small village occupied under a Nazi force led by Pilou Asbæk's insanely hatable villain, Wafner. Also worthy of mention is Bokeem Woodbine as Sgt Rensin, who despite his unfortunately brief screentime, left a big impression on me as he fused elements of Sgt Apone from Aliens and Lt Aldo Raine from Inglourious Basterds into one utterly memorable force of nature.
The movie opens with one of the most smotheringly intense airdrop sequences I've ever seen in a movie that blew me straight to the back of my seat, where I remained pinned by the rest of the movie's oppressively Wolfensteinian atmosphere. The film rarely lets up on the tension as roughly 90% of the movie keeps the camera closely trained on Boyce like a rail shooter from the arcades. The horror imagery, while wisely sparse and delivered in well-paced doses, is gruesomely and powerfully realized, serving to keep us on our toes and hiding behind our hands, peeking at the blood-soaked screen from between our fingers. The second act in particular caps off with one scene I will never forget, wondering when it was going to end, and not sure I ever wanted it to. I won't spoil it for you, but suffice to say that I won't ever look at Fitz-Simmons the same way again.
Overlord is often hard to watch, but in a very good way, and the 2.5-hour runtime blows past you faster than a bullet through a Nazi zombie's head. This is one movie I cannot wait to own on blu ray, as I will definitely be adding this to my annual October horror regimen.
Review of Overlord
