Overlord (2018)

Overlord
Directed by	Julius Avery
Produced by	J.J. Abrams Lindsey Weber
Written by	Billy Ray Mark L. Smith
Studio	Paramount Pictures Bad Robot Productions
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Running time	110 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Aspect Ratio	2.39:1 (Scope)
Rating	for strong bloody violence, disturbing images, language, and brief sexual content
Budget	$38 million
Box office	$41 million

Overlord is a 2018 American Alternate History action horror film directed by Julius Avery. The cast of the film consists of Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk, and Bokeem Woodbine. The plot follows several American soldiers who are dropped behind enemy lines the day before D-Day and discover terrifying Nazi experiments.

The film was released on November 9, 2018 by Paramount Pictures. The film grossed $41 million against a budget of $38 million.

Plot

Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film.

On the eve of D-Day, a paratrooper squad is sent to destroy a German radio tower in an old church; however, their plane is shot down before they can reach their target, leaving only five apparent survivors, Corporal Ford and privates Boyce, Tibbet, Chase and Dawson. Dawson, who wants to publish a book of his exploits during the war when he returns home, is suddenly killed by a mine as they try to reach the village.

While approaching the village, the surviving soldiers are discovered by Chloe, a French woman scavenging for resources, who agrees to take them into the village where the radio tower is located. The soldiers learn that Chloe lives with her 8-year-old brother Paul and her aunt, who has been disfigured by Nazi experiments taking place in the church. The soldiers hide in the attic when a Nazi patrol performs a routine inspection, then SS Hauptsturmführer Wafner attempts to rape Chloe. Boyce, being an idealistic new recruit, cannot ignore this and interrupts the Nazi officer, forcing the soldiers to take him prisoner. Tibbet and Chase depart to check the scheduled rendezvous site in case other members of their squad survived, while Boyce leaves to join them after he becomes disgusted with Ford's brutal interrogation of Wafner.

Attempting to reach the rendezvous point, Boyce witnesses the Nazis burning disfigured village residents after taking them out of a rear exit to an underground laboratory beneath the church, but he is nearly caught by a dog and forced to take refuge in a truck carrying the bodies of some of the other paratroopers. Once inside the base, Boyce escapes and learns that there are various experiments taking place in that lab, based around a mysterious liquid compound the Nazis discovered under the church. Boyce takes a syringe containing the serum and rescues Rosenfeld, another member of the paratrooper squad who was captured by the Nazis and was about to be subject to further tests, escaping the church.

Back at the attic, Boyce reveals the existence of the lab, but Wafner refuses to explain what the serum does. As the squad prepare to assault the church, Wafner attempts to escape, fatally shooting Chase in the process, driving Boyce to use the serum on Chase after his death. The serum restores Chase to life, but he immediately begins to mutate and turns hostile, even surviving being shot multiple times in the chest by the panicked Ford, forcing Boyce to pulverize Chase's head to stop him. Wafner confirms that the compound recovered from under the castle has the ability to reanimate the dead, musing that "a thousand year Reich needs thousand year soldiers". As Ford attempts to assure Boyce that Chase was dead after he was injected with the serum, a patrol responding to the carnage arrives, and a shootout erupts where the patrol is killed and Ford blows half of Wafner's face off. Wafner escapes with Paul as a hostage and back at the lab, injects himself with two dosages of the serum.

With time running out until the deadline when the radio tower must be destroyed, Boyce convinces Ford that destroying the laboratory has to be their priority. While Rosenfeld and Tibbet create a distraction at the rear entrance, Ford, Boyce and Chloe enter the base through the waterway Boyce previously used to escape. Boyce and Ford plant the explosives while Chloe rescues Paul. Chloe is briefly attacked by another test subject, but she is able to get Paul to safety and incinerates the subject with a flamethrower, while Boyce kills Doctor Schmidt, the scientist leading the experiments, in a confrontation. Ford is attacked by Wafner. When Boyce manages to distract Wafner, the injured Ford injects himself with another syringe containing the serum, allowing him to force Wafner down the pit where the compound was discovered, he then forces Boyce to leave him behind and finish setting off the dynamite, Ford certain that neither side can be trusted with the power of the serum.

In his report Boyce credits Ford for the decision to plant the bombs inside the church. The commanding officer questions Boyce regarding rumors of an underground lab under the church. Boyce, sharing Ford's view, denies seeing anything worth digging up. The officer seemingly accepts his story and informs him that they will be reassigned to Charlie Company as the war continues.

Cast

• Jovan Adepo as Private First Class Edward Boyce, an idealistic African-American paratrooper and former member of "The Triple Nickels" who uncovers the Nazi experiments below the church and radio tower.
• Wyatt Russell as Corporal Lewis Ford, a paratrooper and explosives expert who is vehemently against swaying from the mission to destroy the radio tower.
• Pilou Asbæk as Captain Wafner, an SS Hauptsturmführer/Captain.
• Mathilde Ollivier as Chloe Laurent, Paul's sister and a French civilian who aides the stranded paratroopers.
• John Magaro as Private First Class Lyle Tibbet, a paratrooper and sniper.
• Bokeem Woodbine as Sergeant Rensin.
• Iain De Caestecker as Private Morton Chase, a paratrooper and photographer.
• Dominic Applewhite as Private First Class Jacob Rosenfeld, a paratrooper.
• Gianny Taufer as Paul Laurent, Chloe's younger brother
• Jacob Anderson as Private First Class Charlie Dawson, a paratrooper.
• Erich Redman as Dr. Schmidt, head of the experimentation on French civilians and dead German soldiers.
• Patrick Brammall as American Officer
• Mark McKenna as Private First Class Murphy
• Joseph Quinn as Grunauer
• Meg Foster as Chloe's Aunt

Production

The initial story for the film was conceived by J. J. Abrams and screenwriter Billy Ray, with Ray penning the script. Paramount acquired the film in 2017, and Mark L. Smith was brought in to polish the script. On February 1, 2017, Bad Robot Productions and Paramount Pictures announced that Julius Avery would direct the film. On January 18, 2018, the film was initially reported as being the fourth installment in the Cloverfield film series, though Abrams denied this at CinemaCon on April 25, 2018.

In April 2017, Jovan Adepo and Wyatt Russell were the first actors to be cast in the film. In May 2017, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Gianny Taufer, Pilou Asbæk, and Bokeem Woodbine were cast in supporting roles. Principal photography began in September 2017 and wrapped January 2018. Visual effects for the film were provided by Industrial Light & Magic, Image Engine, Rodeo FX, Pixomondo, Mr X, Southbay and Nzviage. Mark Bakowski, Julian Foddy, Dan Seddon, Stefano Trivelli and Pauline Duvall served as visual effects supervisors.

Soundtrack

Overlord
Jed Kurzel
Recorded	2018
Length	49:50
Label	Paramount Music

The official motion picture soundtrack was released on digital only on November 9, 2018 by Paramount Music Corporation. The soundtrack was composed by Australian singer-songwriter and film composer Jed Kurzel, known for his previous work on the sci-fi film Alien: Covenant. This film is Kurzel's second collaboration with director Julius Avery, having previously worked together on Son of a Gun. Playing over the film's credits is the song Bridging the Gap by the rapper Nas, though this does not appear on the soundtrack.

Track list

Spoiler Warning: The following contains important plot details of the entire film.

1. "Arrival"
2. "Hanging Trees"
3. "Mist Patrol"
4. "Devil Dogs"
5. "Lead the Way"
6. "Shooting"
7. "Auntie Scare"
8. "Wafner Arrives"
9. "Pauls Ball"
10. "Approaching the Church"
11. "Serum"
12. "Escape With Rosenfeld"
13. "I'm Gonna Win This One"
14. "Watching Soldiers"
15. "Chase Dies"
16. "Re-Animation"
17. "Dead Again"
18. "The Mistake Is Loose"
19. "Battle"
20. "Chloe Escapes"
21. "Wafner and Doc"
22. "Hang Time"
23. "Boyce Dunk"
24. "Take It Down"
25. "Time Bomb"
26. "Victory"

Release

Overlord was originally scheduled to be released on October 26, 2018. However, in July 2018, it was pushed back to November 9, 2018.

Footage premiered at CinemaCon in April 2018, and the first trailer was released on July 18, 2018. The film premiered at Fantastic Fest 2018 on September 22. The primary theatrical poster for the film was released on September 12, 2018 featuring blood spatters on a white backdrop which represent the paratroopers in the film, the poster also won the IMP Award for best poster of 2018.

Home video

The film was released on DVD and Blu-ray on February 19, 2019 and was available on Digital HD from Amazon Video and iTunes on February 18, 2019.

Box office

Overlord grossed $21.7 million in the United States and Canada, and $20 million in other territories, for a total worldwide gross of $41.7 million, against a production budget of $38 million.

In the United States and Canada, Overlord was released alongside The Girl in the Spider's Web and The Grinch, and was projected to gross $8–13 million from 2,859 theaters in its opening weekend. It made $3 million on its first day, including $900,000 from Thursday night previews. It went on to debut to $10.1 million, finishing third at the box office. The film fell 62% in its second weekend to $3.9 million, finishing eighth.

Reception

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds a rating of 81% based on 220 reviews and an average rating of 6.71/10. On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 60 out of 100 based on 28 critics Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B" on an A+ to F scale, while PostTrak reported filmgoers gave it three out of five stars.

Amy Nicholson of Variety wrote "Even at its most suspenseful, when Jed Kurzel's cello score stabs at the eardrums, Overlord feels familiar, a collage of cinematic nightmares checking off its influences: a woman wielding a flamethrower like Ripley in Aliens, a cruel SS officer (the terrifically hissable Pilou Asbæk) who grins like a Batman villain, and enough of a Castle Wolfenstein video-game vibe that its fans may find themselves reaching for the controls out of habit." While most reviews were positive, Michael Ordoña of the San Francisco Chronicle gave a rather scathing review, writing that the "enjoyment" one expects from GIs fighting zombies is "stunted by the film's lack of energy and imagination," and goes on to explain, "Director Julius Avery goes to the startle-scare early and often. Every turn, every beat feels too familiar. The writers didn't bother researching period lingo. Characters do idiotic things to enable plot devices. The screaming and gunfire seem excessive for a stealth mission. And the whole undead thing simply doesn't pay off." Although he does admit, "At least the makeup effects are quite good." John DeFoe of The Hollywood Reporter gave the film a positive review, writing: "As the team moves in on the laboratory and the radio tower above it, Avery balances the truly disgusting with more comic-book-like action...Still, the movie's tone holds together, with the lurid colors of opening scenes (the cinematic equivalent of a gory, pre-code war comic book) setting the stage for heightened action to come."

Accolades

Award			Result
Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, USA	Best Horror Film	Overlord	Nominated
	Best Make-Up	Tristan Versluis, Naomi Donne, Duncan Jarman	Nominated
Fangoria Chainsaw Awards	Best Wide-Release Film	Julius Avery	Nominated
Hawaii Film Critics Society	Best Makeup	Tristan Versluis, Naomi Donne, Duncan Jarman	Nominated
	Best Sci-Fi/Horror Film	Overlord	Nominated
Toronto After Dark Film Festival	Best Cinematography	Laurie Rose Fabian Wagner	Won
	Best Sound Design	Robert Stambler	Won

Trivia

• This is the first film from Bad Robot Productions to be rated R by the MPAA.
• Wyatt Russell said he had mono while filming and that he had lost around 25 pounds in an interview with Jimmy Fallon.
• The movie featured more practical effects rather than CGI effects most movies use. This was done to get a better reaction from the actors involved in the scenes where something gruesome would happen, such as the scene where Chase's neck snaps back so fast causing bones to stick out of his chest, which was done with old-school puppetry.
• It took 5 hours each day to apply the face makeup to Pilou Asbæk for his disfigured face appearance.
• The original version of the script written in 2013 by screenwriter Billy Ray was very different in some parts than the final movie, before it was changed over the years and after another writer Mark L. Smith was hired to polish the script. One of the biggest differences included far more focus on horror elements. Boyce, Ford and Chloe were fighting against even more undead Nazis inside the church and laboratory, as an example.
• David Brin's science fiction short story, "Thor Meets Captain America", contains a similar premise, though it in addition features deities of the Norse pantheon, which are not present in this film's story.

Gallery

Posters

Trailers

OVERLORD (2018)- Official Trailer - Paramount Pictures

Official Trailer

Overlord (2018) Final Trailer - Paramount Pictures

Official Final Trailer

External links

• Overlord at IMDb
• Overlord at Box Office Mojo
• Overlord at Rotten Tomatoes
• Overlord at Metacritic