Overlord (Julius Avery)

[Henry Gale]

IMDb / Wiki

[Ivan Drago]

That's a great poster. Did Mondo make that?

[Henry Gale]

It is! And they gave away a nice, sturdy print of it at the Toronto After Dark screening I saw it at (along with syringe-looking pens and regular-looking bandages in an Overlord-branded package). I think if you zoom in on the above picture you can see their special "Mondo Ministry of Information" logo on it.

And I had a really good time with the movie. It's not exactly remarkable in any real respects but definitely efficient in what it sets out to do, which is being a very slick and efficient melding of intense, visceral World War II action, grisly B-movie/exploitation horror, and Abrams' style of sweeping spectacle and popcorn movie energy all in one package.

Having seen it does even more to argue against the rumour, but if this was ever meant to be a Cloverfield installment then it could've been a great departure for it and helped guide towards a more interestingly varied and truly anthology-based longevity of that brand. As it is it's just a really sturdy piece of non-franchise-seeking horror entertainment that likely only gets to be made without micro-budget because someone like Abrams is behind it. I can only hope it does well to help boost more fun anomalies like it.

[MadMan]

Gory and lots of fun. I dug some of the shots (the one with the dead hanging from the trees late at night was beautiful and creepy) plus there are some really awesome moments that had me engaged. I liked that the cast actually looked like they could be in a WWII movie.

[Dukefrukem]

I'm not sure what to think about this. On one side I can appreciate the aesthetic, I really like the parallels made with Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I also like the From Dusk to Dawn-like opening approach. Love the horror elements, such as the woman's head attached to the spine who was speaking French. But there's just not enough here that would ever make me want to watch this again. I thought maybe it would be an ensemble story, but it ends up being fairly straight forward and predictable.

Disappointed.

[Grouchy]

Well, for me this is the genre movie of the year, a distinction perhaps shared with Upgrade. A perfect blend of war flick with strong Horror and Sci-fi elements and the best character work to come up of Hollywood in a long time. I'm not crazy about J.J. Abrams as a filmmaker but his work as a producer of modern B-movies deserves every round of applause.

[Ivan Drago]

I will admit, the more I think about this, the more I want to see it again. It has one of my favorite lines from a movie last year:

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Show Spoiler

"A thousand-year Reich. . . needs thousand-year soldiers."

]

[MadMan]

I will admit, the more I think about this, the more I want to see it again. It has one of my favorite lines from a movie last year:

[

Show Spoiler

"A thousand-year Reich. . . needs thousand-year soldiers."

]

That line was pure B-movie material.

[Neclord]

Oh hey this movie wrecked shit!

[Skitch]

Yeah this was fun.

[Philip J. Fry]

Very much so.