Julius Avery
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Magaro and Ollivier are also quite good in their limited stints, but Russell, filling a role akin to his father Kurt’s badass John Carpenter roles in “The Thing” and “Escape from New York,” doesn’t quite seal the deal.
Russell dials down the aw-shucks charm he’s shown in previous roles, instead echoing the world-weariness his father demonstrated in John Carpenter’s The Thing (a clear spiritual cousin to Overlord ).
Director Julius Avery’s reference points don’t end there, reversing iconic imagery from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and staging a ghastly transformation sequence that conjures sensations of The Thing, a comparison aided by situating Kurt Russell’s son front and center amidst the chaos.
The characters fit certain “types” — Jovan Adepo as Boyce, the soldier too tender-hearted to even kill a mouse; Wyatt Russell as tough guy Ford, making a strong case for stepping into his father Kurt’s shoes should Hollywood ever attempt a second remake of The Thing ; Mathilde Ollivier as Chloe, the sole female presence; and Game of Thrones’ Pilou Asbæk as Wafner, the cartoonishly menacing Nazi officer — and they’re knocked down in the order you expect them to be.
While a big gory scene in an attic is an absolutely disturbing tribute to “The Thing,” there’s almost zero rationale for why Boyce would resort to desperate measures, in the first place.
In His Father’s (Bloody) Footsteps: Wyatt Russell has already forged a career much different than his father’s, but Overlord is notable for placing him in what ends up becoming a close-quarters horror movie a la The Thing .
Saving Private Ryan (1998)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Overlord (2018)
Themes Visuals Plot Dialogue Characters
Striking an exact balance between Saving Private Ryan and Frankenstein's Army (2013), this super-gory Nazi-zombie horror is great fun and unrelenting throughout its violent twists and atmospheric turns.
After a brutal opening sequence reminiscent of Saving Private Ryan , a small handful of soldiers meet up to complete their mission: They must disable a German radio tower so that the allies can provide air support during D-Day.
No sacrificing “one or the other” when it comes to Saving Private Ryan tactics vs. slobbering 28 Days Later speed chases once Bill Ray and Mark L. Smith’s screenplay faces its ultimate breaking point.
The characters may be “types” borrowed from scores of films (a sniper with a “Put me in range of Hitler” boast stolen straight from “Saving Private Ryan”), but every now and then, a funny line crosses their lips.
The inspiration is obviously the gut-wrenching opening of Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan , but Avery amps up the story with the sensibilities of a modern video game.
There isn’t much time to explore every character as thoroughly as, say, Saving Private Ryan , The Thin Red Line , or Platoon , but we get just enough from everyone for their characters to be actual characters, not cartoons.
From Jed Kurzel’s thundering score to the SS goon who takes the time to spit on a small boy’s baseball, Overlord bombasts its way through its mondo sub-genre, with a sign that reads “Moreau”, an imposing keep that recalls, well, Michael Mann’s The Keep , and several direct lifts from Return to Castle Wolfenstein.
But it’s fun in its own lowbrow way, and makes a nice complement to an undeservedly forgotten lark from 1983—Michael Mann’s goofy “The Keep,” in which Nazi troops in Romania had to contend with an evil force haunting their mountain fortress.
Magaro and Ollivier are also quite good in their limited stints, but Russell, filling a role akin to his father Kurt’s badass John Carpenter roles in “The Thing” and “Escape from New York,” doesn’t quite seal the deal.
Russell is absolutely channeling his father Kurt in “Escape From New York,” and it’s another fun, pulpy performance from the actor.
Boyce, naive war photographer Chase (Iain De Caestecker of Agents of SHIELD ), snarky sniper Tibbet (John Magaro), and explosions expert Ford (Wyatt Russell, a dead ringer for his father Kurt circa Escape from New York ).
It might also sweeten the pot that Avery’s horror war hybrid feels like a spiritual prequel to “Re-Animator.”
If you can imagine the pulpy WWII revisionism of Inglourious Basterds cross-pollinated with the giddy grindhouse splatter of 1985’s Re-Animator , then you’re more than halfway to the insane B-movie mayhem of Overlord .
But that didn’t stop the makers of Overlord —including hotshot producer J.J. Abrams—from trying their darnedest to find some whacked-out middle ground between Re-Animator and Saving Private Ryan .
Written by Billy Way and Mark L. Smith, with solid cinematography by Laurie Rose and Fabian Wagner, “Overlord” is a kooky riff on the “Re-Animator” formula.
Produced by J.J. Abrams and directed by Julius Avery, Overlord -- which feels something like Inglourious Basterds crossed with Re-Animator -- goes along for the first hour as if it were an ordinary WWII movie, albeit one that's rather noisy and with quite a lot of shaky-cam footage.
Then, not unlike From Dusk Till Dawn -- which suddenly morphed from one kind of movie into another -- Overlord goes completely bonkers.
Some fantastic films have pulled off this trick, like John Carpenter’s The Thing (sci-fi and horror), Robert Rodriguez’s From Dusk till Dawn (crime and horror) and Pan’s Labyrinth (fantasy and war) to name but three.
The genre switch-up isn’t as sudden as, say, From Dusk Till Dawn , while Asbæk’s sneering baddie pales in comparison to Inglourious Basterds ’ Hans Landa or Pan’s Labyrinth ’s Captain Vidal.
This wouldn’t necessarily be a problem if the movie took a From Dusk till Dawn -style turn once the horror elements come into play, but the film’s tone doesn’t shift much after this reveal.
(The Fuller comparisons are particularly strong in a minefield sequence reminiscent of Fixed Bayonets!
The film just can't seem to decide whether it wants to embrace the schlockiness inherent its concept and turn into a period version of Neil Marshall's Dog Soldiers , or play it super straight, adding the horror of the monsters on top of the already horrific realities of war.
Like From Dusk Til Dawn or Dog Soldiers , Overlord continues to play it coy about its horror movie foundation in its first half.
Julius Avery directs this high-energy, low-imagination genre mashup, a combination of Inglourious Basterds and Planet Terror that is not nearly as fun as that description might imply.
Where the Second World War is concerned, that’s evident in movies made as the conflict raged, such as neorealist drama Rome, Open City; in accounts filmed shortly after the battle came to an end, like The Bridge on the River Kwai; and in everything from Schindler’s List to Inglourious Basterds to Dunkirk since.
If you can imagine the pulpy WWII revisionism of Inglourious Basterds cross-pollinated with the giddy grindhouse splatter of 1985’s Re-Animator , then you’re more than halfway to the insane B-movie mayhem of Overlord .
“Overlord” works best as a patriotism booster shot — it’s “Inglourious Basterds” without a swizzle of irony.
Those flourishes bring the film (written by Billy Ray and Mark L. Smith) into the sci-fi and alternate history realms, although no one will confuse this consciously popcorn-y exercise with "Inglourious Basterds" or "The Man in the High Castle."
The end result is a highly entertaining mashup of Inglourious Basterds and 28 Days Later .
Jean Yarbrough’s zany King of the Zombies mashed the two genres together (albeit without ever explicitly using the term “Nazis”) back in 1941.
Dos piezas maestras del clima antinazi en pleno conflicto bélico, King of the Zombies (Jean Yarbrough, 1941) y, sobre todo, Revenge of the Zombies (Steve Sekely, 1943), imaginaron la amenaza de las huestes de Hitler en forma de doctores locos, invasiones de muertos vivientes y criaturas monstruosas.
Unbreakable (2000)
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan
influenced Samaritan (2022)
Plot Themes Characters
While Samaritan has much of the same premise as M. Night Shyamalan’s Unbreakable , the approaches are very different.
Non è il classico cinecomic , definizione che tecnicamente non credo sia nemmeno appropriata considerando che il film è sì preceduto da una graphic novel ma il progetto nasce proprio come sceneggiatura cinematografica scritta da Schut nel 2014 (che si era ispirato ad opere come Unbreakable e Scoprendo Forrester , entrambi del 2000) e diventata fumetto in attesa che i tempi fossero maturi per il grande schermo.
In Samaritan sehen wir ihn zum ersten Mal in der Filmgeschichte als pensionierten Superhelden; eine Figur, die uns neben Bruce Willis in Unbreakable fast ein wenig an Rocky Balboa erinnert.
The movements of the “zombies” for lack of a better word, are reminiscent of the Dawn of the Dead remake from 2003 and are definitely stress-inducing.
Directed by Julius Avery and produced by J.J. Abrams, Overlord owes much more to The Dirty Dozen, Saving Private Ryan or Inglorious Bastards than it does Dawn of the Dead, The Walking Dead , or 28 Days Later .
Not every zombie film needs to be Shaun of the Dead , but there’s a real crowd-pleaser buried beneath Overlord’s layers of Sturm and Drang.
Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981)
Directed by Steven Spielberg
influenced Overlord (2018)
Themes Plot Characters
Nazis also did horrific experiments on people and Hitler was interested in the occult, which has inspired everything from "Raiders of the Lost Ark" to the video game "Wolfenstein."
If you took “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” mashed it up with some gonzo grindhouse pics, doused it in shaken-up cans of original Four Loko and then lit it on fire, laughing while it burned, you might begin to approach the craziness that is “Overlord.”
Think the Nazis in “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” only a lot scarier.
…and in their gruff, cynical CO who seems the lost cousin of Gene Evans’ Sergeant Zack in The Steel Helmet.)
Thus the integrated paratroop unit being dropped behind enemy lines: the squirrelly Chase (De Caestecker); loudmouth sniper Tibbett (Magaro); grizzled vet Ford (Russell, doing his best Tom Berenger in Platoon meets Lee Marvin in The Big Red One); and Boyce (Adepo), the naive young trooper who isn't really ready for conflict, and who mostly expresses this by coming up with terrible plans, or disobeying orders in a way that will probably get him or someone else killed.
There isn’t much time to explore every character as thoroughly as, say, Saving Private Ryan , The Thin Red Line , or Platoon , but we get just enough from everyone for their characters to be actual characters, not cartoons.
Thus the integrated paratroop unit being dropped behind enemy lines: the squirrelly Chase (De Caestecker); loudmouth sniper Tibbett (Magaro); grizzled vet Ford (Russell, doing his best Tom Berenger in Platoon meets Lee Marvin in The Big Red One); and Boyce (Adepo), the naive young trooper who isn't really ready for conflict, and who mostly expresses this by coming up with terrible plans, or disobeying orders in a way that will probably get him or someone else killed.
Striking an exact balance between Saving Private Ryan and Frankenstein's Army (2013), this super-gory Nazi-zombie horror is great fun and unrelenting throughout its violent twists and atmospheric turns.
After being blown out of the sky, the group is flung into the middle of a village that’s been taken over by a small but virulent group of Nazis who have a suspicious obsession with the local church on which the comm tower has been placed.When I first came across Overlord I was pretty sure it had all been done before, with films like Dead Snow and Frankenstein’s Army already covering the whole “Nazi experiments gone even wronger than you’d expect Nazi experiments to go” angle.
Sometimes such devotion translates to lesser combat presence (Frankenstein’s Army), but Avery’s Speilbergian battlefield intensity is rip-roaring sensational.
Outpost (2008), The Devil’s Rock (2011), Frankenstein’s Army (2013)… it’s a short list.
Yet the sum of its Frankenstein’s Army -like parts rarely add up to originality.
The insertion sequence, all droning warplanes flying through enemy fire in the dark of night and then hellish jumps to the even more dangerous ground below, borrows a whole helluva lot — visually and structurally — from the invasion sequence in Edge of Tomorrow (which was itself, of course, inspired by D-Day), but… fine.
The scene echoes the likes of dozens of war films but is pitched almost identically to the repeated sequences in Edge of Tomorrow .
Director Julius Avery’s reference points don’t end there, reversing iconic imagery from The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, and staging a ghastly transformation sequence that conjures sensations of The Thing, a comparison aided by situating Kurt Russell’s son front and center amidst the chaos.
It’s gory, utopian fan fiction that imagines, “What if the night before D-day, a bunch of black and Jewish American soldiers fought off Nazi zombies?” Avery has sprinkled references to classic Universal monster movies, ’80s action-horror flicks like “The Thing” (which starred Russell’s dad, Kurt) and even shades of Gore Verbinski’s recent Germanic sicko epic “A Cure for Wellness,” with all the damp underground labs and hideous experimentation.