I have broad tastes in movies. In fact, I’ll
watch almost anything when I’m in the mood to go to the cineplex, though I’m
not a big fan of rom-coms, teen slasher films or torture porn. (And, yes, I
just put rom-coms in the same intolerable category as torture porn.) But every
so often I’ll check out a film for the heck of it and discover the work rises
above its humble expectations to become truly entertaining.
Bad
Times at the El Royale, which I saw a couple of
weeks ago, was such a film. This week’s overachiever was Overlord, a Nazi/super-zombie horror flick directed by Julius Avery
(Son of a Gun). I went in thinking
I’d have some fun and enjoy my popcorn; I came out being more impressed than I
expected with this war story-cum-mad scientist tale. Of course, it was gory and
highly unlikely, with a plot reminiscent of those Weird comic books we read as kids, but the characters were
interesting enough that you cared about them. And, given a giant suspension of disbelief, the peril they faced seemed
authentic.
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| Overlord: Because Nazis (and Nazi zombies) make the best villains. |
The film's premise is that a platoon of U.S. GIs
parachutes into Nazi-occupied France just before D-Day with the objective of
taking out a radio tower atop an old castle. The first half of the film
is standard war-film set-up stuff, introducing the nervous new recruits
(including primary hero Jovan Adepo as Boyce), the tough-as-nails veteran
(Wyatt Russell, son of Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn, as Ford), and so on),
following them as they lose guys getting to the ground in the middle of a ferocious air battle and slip into the
French village below the castle.
The remaining four Americans hole up in the
home of a young French woman, her vulnerable little brother and her mysterious
aunt, who was exposed to some horrible disease when in the custody of the
evil Nazis at the castle. This is the first hint of something “other” about the
story. Supernatural elements accumulate as the GIs get closer to their
objective, until a full picture emerges of what is going on in the labs
beneath the stone structure: the Nazi scientists are conducting torturous
experiments on the villagers in order to create immortal “super-soldiers” for
the Reich. Yes, we are talking--gasp!--Nazi zombies!
So, of course, our heroes must not only take
out the radio tower, they also must destroy the labs and all evidence of the
work that has been done there. (For as Ford points out, the Americans and their
allies wouldn’t hesitate to use such heinous technology either, if it fell into
their hands.) Heroism ensues, saving the brave French woman and her brother in
the process, too, along with the sacrifice and wise-cracking humor we identify
with the Greatest Generation.
I read something recently (on Facebook, that
source of all such conflict-baiting) which amounted to a generational whine
about Baby Boomers from Millennials. One of their Top Ten complaints about us,
apparently, is, “Why do they keep talking about the Nazis all the time?”
Um, well, the first and best answer is that no one should ever forget the horror Nazi Germany perpetuated upon the world,
especially when their nationalist philosophy is resurgant in so many countries
today, including our own. The murder of 13 Jews in their synagogue in
Pittsburgh just weeks ago is ample proof of that.
But the writer in me wants to argue that the
Nazis also make the best villains in the history of fiction. They are dogmatic and
cruel, sadistic and powerful. They are a juggernaut of evil at the same time
that they are a caricature of themselves. If you set out to create a
larger-than-life Evil Villain, you could not come up with anything “better”
than a run-of-the-mill Nazi commandant.
That is certainly the case in Overlord, where Wafner (Pilou Asbaek),
the smarmy commander of the Nazi garrison where all the action takes place, is
hateful enough in his human form, but gloriously terrifying in his hideous
super-soldier form. It takes an act of almost superhuman strength and
determination to defeat him, an act of supreme selflessness and courage. That
the writer, Billy Ray (Hunger Games,
Captain Phillips) uses this moment to such effect elevates the film beyond
its mere horror movie tropes.
The villains are not the only characters who
stand out in Overlord. Though Boyce
and Ford (and New York tough guy Tibbet—John Magaro) are typical war-movie
standbys, the actors all play their roles with gusto. The French family,
resisting against all odds, is a nice touch. And the special effects of this
film—the exploding planes and ripping bullets of the opening air battle, the
gruesome make-up—are superior, giving Overlord
an authenticity it might not have had otherwise.
All in all, a nice surprise at the cineplex,
and a much better than average SF/horror film. A definite GO, if that is your
cup of tea.
Cheers, Donna
