New Year's Countdown...to Horror: 6 - Overlord

 6
Overlord
2018, d. Julius Avery - netflix

The Story (in 2 paragraphs or less)
World War II... Americans are mounting en masse to rescue France from German occupation (this is set just prior to D-day).  The film opens with a harrowing incursion into enemy territory.  By the time the smoke clears, only four of our POV squad remains.  Their goal is to take out a radio jamming tower in a nearby church.  They meet up with a local woman who provides them shelter and insight into what's been happening in the area.

Turns out the Nazi's are performing experiments in the church on the locals, and any soldiers, living or dead, they find.  "The thousand year reich needs thousand year soldiers" as they say.  So our troops need to not only blow up the tower so troops can land on the beach, but also destroy the zombie supersoldier program.

Why This?
Been meaning to watch this since it came out.

What's Good?
That opening sequence is incredible.  The rest of the movie is pretty cracking entertainment as well.  

Not so good...
The film doesn't have any room for a dialogue on race in the military.  With Da 5 Bloods exploring the Black experience in Viet Nam and Lovecraft Country starring a Korean war vet this year, it's glaring that the lead character here (played by Jovan Adepo), in 1944, doesn't have anything specific to say about his experience.  Even what he does say, about being conscripted, doesn't really have anything unique or personal behind it.  2018 seems so archaic.

The bad thing
Nazis fucking suck, you guys. 
I was expecting zombie nazi soldiers and was pleasantly surprised to find more of a super-soldier serum-gone-wrong.

Franchise Potential
Thankfully this feels complete in and of itself. So refreshing.

Did I like watching this?
I did, actually.  Quite a bit.  And it was refreshing to get a big, harrowing opening action sequence which most horror films never have the budget for.  It's not really horror, in the end...as it was sold originally as a horror movie.  It's a biggish-budget action movie, set in WWII, with a light dusting of horror elements.  It's quite the genre mash and I liked it.  

[Toasty's take-Toasty and I agree that this is a really fun movie, and I appreciate that at the time of Toasty's writing that he felt it did subtly intone race and gender inequality. (I also like Toasty's statement of "...movies, which I have always chosen to be my explorative vehicle for race, gender and equality conversations..."... heh, we agree)  I just wish in light of the modern conversation that it had done a little more]