Overlord

An absolute blast from start to finish. Overlord is essentially a high-octane B-movie with the kind of plot you'd expect from this genre, but it's executed so brilliantly, with top-notch effects and an intense pace that you can't help but get swept up in it. The level of brutality is impressively extreme, definitely not holding back. While the characters aren't deeply developed, they're likable enough for me to care about their fates. As an action horror film, it hits all the right notes and stands out as a top-tier entry in the genre. You won't find anything better anytime soon. (12/10/2018)

The ultimate guilty pleasure and the best war horror movie ever. Hereditary is the most essential horror film of the year, Ghostland the most intense, A Quiet Place the most original and Overlord is the most emotional and brutal. Overlord serves up a whirlwind of eye-candy attractions from the 5th minute that don’t let up and leave you gasping for breath until the closing credits. A technically perfect polished action spree with breathtaking cinematography, an atmosphere driven by a nostalgic “Wolfenstein”, a likeable bunch of soldiers whose fate you care about and spectacular action backed by juicy gore. The make-up artists are incredibly skilled and serve up some very nice shots. The film manages to build solid tension on several occasions, there is no shortage of shocking jump scares and killing Nazis has never been more effective and entertaining in a film than here. There are fewer zombies, but they are all the more unstoppable bastards. Story-wise, the film doesn't wow, but anyone expecting Oscar nominations from a WWII horror film is out of their mind. Here clearly form wins over content, which not everyone will buy, but those who agree to the rules of the film will literally gush with excitement and thrill. It's a pity that Overlord probably won't make it to local cinemas, it will lose its charm at home on TV. The last time I left the cinema this excited was Deadpool 2 this year. (13/11/2018)

An over-the-top war battle between five American paratroopers and Nazis brewing experimental medicine in France to transform dead bodies into mutated super-soldiers. This is a total victory of polished production values in an otherwise entirely below-average story full of one-dimensional characters and stupid American clichés. The film is a lot like Frankenstein's Army, with an extremely generous budget and ostentatiously exhibition-like action scenes, relying heavily on horror stylized elements and explicit brutality. When you have a leaky and stupid screenplay, first-rate assertiveness and a large budget seldom tend to save it. The visual gloss can work as a band-aid, but in this case it peels off quickly if you don’t buy into the very impressive parachute introduction and realize that the rest the film takes place in two locations, that you can count the zombies on one hand, and that even the best tricks and masks don’t cover up the barren dialogues, lack of exaggeration, lack of imagination, a predictable ordinary plot, and the fact that a six-year-old boy with ball in hand constantly gets in the way of the heroes, probably to make it even more American. (13/10/2018)

Overlord is technically a perfect piece of crap chock-full of little details to satisfy geeky taste buds. How could such a farce have the most luxuriously intense final fight, milking its potential to the last drop, which will satisfy even the most hard-core fan of the genre? Overlord recalls everything from Sky Captain to Dead Snow to Planet Terror. It’s like a more expensive, more refined, almost top-tier grindhouse flick, but (unfortunately) unlike typical representatives of this sub-genre, it takes itself seriously, plays at big heroes and maintains political correctness. This creates a conflicting mix of impressions and could deserve a rating of anywhere from one to five stars, depending on what you expect from this movie and your current mood. [Sitges FF] (13/10/2018)

It sounded more promising on paper. Overlord is a well made action horror film with undead, Nazis and undead Nazis. It's just that they didn't have a lot of money to spend on it, so it takes a long time to get going, and in the end Julius Avery and J.J. Abrams don't show enough to make it a real hit. But thanks to the good cast, the proper cinematic violence, and solid pacing towards the end, it's ultimately pretty good, though I guess more was expected. (18/06/2019)