Overlord

I was very intrigued by the idea of a movie involving World War II intrigue and elements of horror so I decided to see Overlord last night.  I liked it so much more than I thought I would!  On the eve of the D-Day invasion in France a squadron of paratroopers is sent to destroy a German radio tower attached to a church in a tiny village.  When their plane is shot down, only five members of the squadron survive:  Ford (Wyatt Russell), Boyce (Jovan Adepo), Tibbet (John Magaro), Chase (Iain De Caestecker), and Dawson (Jacob Anderson).  Ford insists that they carry on with the mission to destroy the radio tower despite the odds and they encounter a villager named Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier) who hides them.  While scouting the area around the church, Boyce discovers that the Nazis have been using a serum to experiment on the villagers in the hope that they can create a super soldier to win the war.  He eventually rescues a paratrooper who was captured (Dominic Applewhite).  They decide that not only do they need to blow up the radio tower but they also need to destroy the Nazi's lab which leads to an epic showdown.  There are some elements of the story that do become rather silly, especially involving a German officer who injects himself with the serum, but I found it to be incredibly suspenseful and entertaining.  The action sequences are intense, particularly the opening scene in which the plane is shot down, and the scenes where Boyce explores the lab in the church are really creepy and atmospheric (thanks to great sound design) even if they do contain many horror tropes.  My favorite scene involves Chloe taking out a particularly persistent monster (I may or may not have cheered out loud).  Most of the characters are very thinly drawn and stereotypical (the war-weary veteran, the innocent newcomer, the wise-cracking prankster, the self-sufficient survivor) but I did find them to be sympathetic and I was rooting for them to succeed.  This movie is pretty gory and violent (lots of war and zombie imagery) but it is a lot of fun.  I am actually very surprised by how much I enjoyed Overlord and I would recommend it to fans of action/horror movies.