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Previously, I wrote an article about movies that I was annoyed weren’t bigger hits, and I don’t know how I didn’t include Overlord because it definitely fits the bill.
While it wasn’t a COLOSSAL flop, like, say, John Carter, or Tron: Ares (It earned around $41 million worldwide against a $38 million budget), it definitely could have done A LOT better at the box office, and that’s because Overlord is so freaking cool!
For those who didn’t see it (and I know it’s a lot of you), it’s probably one of the best action horror movies you could ever watch, and I’m here to sing its praises!
Oh, and spoilers up ahead.
First Off, It’s An Alternate History Horror Movie, And Come On. How Cool Is That?
Do you like Raiders of the Lost Ark? Do you also like the Wolfenstein video games? If you said yes to both, then my goodness, how have you not seen Overlord yet? (If you have, then you’re a real one.) Set right before D-Day, the story concerns American soldiers who are dropped (more like sent hurdling to their doom after an explosion) in enemy territory. Once there, a select few survivors are tasked with locating and destroying a radio tower that’s been blocking signals.
Sounds simple, right? Well, it might be if the town with the radio-jamming tower didn’t also hide a Nazi experimentation ring. And, that’s where this movie really shines, as it leans into both the alternate history aspect, as well as the horror aspects with aplomb. Plus, it’s also a really great war movie! In fact, on our list of the best war movies of all time, we included Starship Troopers, and I now lament that I didn’t suggest Overlord, since it certainly fits the mold.
The story concerns a paratrooper named Edward Boyce (Jovan Adepo) who manages to survive in a harrowing fashion once his plane gets shot down. Given his rank as a private, he needs to follow the orders of the next highest in command, because his squad leader (played by Bokeem Woodbine, who might just return in the next Spider-Man movie) is killed early on.
That’s where Wyatt Russell’s character, Corporal Lewis Ford, comes in, as he leads the charge to the radio tower, only for everyone to get sucked into a world where German scientists are trying to create monstrous super soldiers. It’s good stuff!
The Opening Sequence Alone With The Plane Exploding Is Worth Discussing
I love flying on planes (unless it’s a 26-hour-flight to and from Japan), but no matter how many I fly on, I always still get a queasy feeling in my stomach whenever there’s turbulence. Thankfully, I’ve always made it back safe and sound, but I’ve seen too many movies with plane crashes to ever fully feel secure up in the air.
Well, if I were to judge the two scariest plane scenes in any movie, I would pick The Grey, starring Liam Neeson, and Overlord. Now, the plane crash in The Grey is terrifying because it’s so abrupt and loud. We have the visible breath, fogged up windows, burning wing, running stewardess, and the roaring explosiveness of the plane going down. All of this is masterful in its way of displaying how a real plane crash might feel.
Now, on the other end of the spectrum, you have Overlord, which feels very much like a movie. But, I think this works in its favor, and it’s really something you have to see on the big screen to truly get the full impact. Bullets fly though the floor, the paratroopers are hooking themselves up to jump, only for explosions to nix those plans, and then they have to make an emergency jump, with our hero spiralling out of control as we watch the plane he was just on explode behind him.
It’s a thrilling, awe-inspiring moment, and really worth the price of admission alone – especially if you saw it in the movie theater.
But Once They Hit The Ground, It Only Gets Better From There
Now, as enthralling as the movie is during that aforementioned scene, it only gets better (and more unpredictable) once our hero, Boyce, hits the ground. After witnessing his lead officer get shot down by Nazis, he meets up with the surviving members of the crash. At first, there are five of them, but then one of them steps on a landmine – midsentence! – and from then on out, you don’t know who’s going to make it through this mission.
They’re led to a village by a woman scavenger named Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) and that’s when the film gets really wild, as her aunt has been greatly disfigured by Nazi experimentation. From there, the story only gets stranger and more violent.
An SS Hauptsturmführer played by Game of Thrones‘ Euron Greyjoy actor himself, Pilou Asbaek, is in a romantic relationship with Chloe (or at least, so he feels), which ultimately leads to the beginning of his downfall because she hates his Nazi guts, and now she has American troops on her side who also hate Nazi guts.
There’s lots of shooting, lots of running, and all manner of Nazi deaths to be had, which is why I said that if you like the Wolfenstein games, you’re going to love this movie. But, do you know what, you’d probably also love this movie if you enjoy the Doom games as well, which I’ll get into next.
The Horror Aspects Are Really Gruesome
Now, if you’re a gamer, you’ll know why I brought up both Doom and Wolfenstein, and it’s because for a time, id Software worked on both of them. And, what’s interesting is that Wolfenstein was the game you played when you wanted to shoot Nazis (and Mecha Hitler), and Doom was the game you played if you wanted to shoot monsters from Hell.
Well, and this is the funny thing, even though we actually got a movie version of Doom starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson (which even he doesn’t like, apparently), Overlord actually feels like a closer representation of that series. Because, unlike the movie Doom, this is actually kind of scary.
This is all due to the experimentation going on. For example, there’s one scene of a woman’s decapitated head screaming, which creeped me out, just like the deepest corridors found in Doom.
Plus, the action is really gruesome, which makes me think of all the ripping and tearing we see in the Doom series. It’s for this reason why I think Overlord is the perfect blend of both Doom and Wolfenstein, and a rare treat for a major studio release, which brings me to my last point.
In The End, Overlord Still Feels Like A Hidden Gem
When I initially saw Overlord back in 2018, I knew right then and there that it was destined to be a cult movie, just as I felt that Dredd – which is my favorite comic book film – had a similar trajectory. It’s just because it’s so weird, and so…different.
It doesn’t try to be anything more than a pulpy horror movie, and it uses World War II as its backdrop because Nazi experimentation was evil, and so you never feel bad when the Nazis get turned into monsters, or are blown to smithereens.
It kind of reminds me of the film The Warrior’s Way, in that it has a seemingly basic title, but is so unique that it’s really hard to know which audience would even be into it.
But, I love The Warrior’s Way, and I love Overlord, too, so I guess I’m that audience. Are you?