Overlord (2018)

Directed by Julius Avery. Starring Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, John Magaro, Pilou Asbæk, Dominic Applewhite, Iain De Caestecker, Bokeem Woodbine, Gianny Taufer. [R]

Blood-splattered war-horror-action hybrid sends the few survivors of an American paratrooper behind-enemy-lines mission to a small French village where Nazis are secretly carrying out shocking (and shockingly gruesome) experiments in order to create immortal and indestructible super-soldiers for a thousand-year Reich. Reads like schlock on the page—and it surely is—but it’s very serious schlock, with hardly any tongue-in-cheek humor or winks to the audience; it’s also skillfully-made schlock, with a number of visually exciting sequences that compensate for a lack of character definition and uneven levels of suspense and overall interest. Most of the best bits are throwaways, like a talking head attached only to a naked spine or a baseball bouncing down stairs like an homage to The Changeling, but gorehounds should be delighted by a plethora of sickening sights, and the average unsqueamish action fan should find its pace and periodic eruptions of Wolfenstein-esque slaughter satisfying enough throughout. Co-produced by J. J. Abrams.

69/100