Overlord (2018)

        Nasty Nazis and their monstrous creations abound as Paramount release Julius Avery's OVERLORD on Blu-ray, DVD & 4KUltraHD.

World War II. A mission to take out a Nazi radio transmitter in a French village goes a bit wrong when the aeroplane carrying the soldiers sent to do it gets shot down. The survivors have to deal with Nazi patrols, and the church where the transmitter has been housed turns out to be less a house of God & more a place filled with naughty Nazi experimentation.

Yes the baddies are trying to create superhuman soldiers. They have got as far a a serum which, when injected, allows you to almost pull your own head off as well as providing super strength and a generally poor disposition towards others. Will our heroes save the day or will evil triumph?

As you might expect from the above, OVERLORD is what in (much) older times might have been referred to as a Boys' Own Adventure. It's basically a comic book tale of goodies versus very broadly drawn baddies indeed. The movie opens with an excellent (and unnerving) aeroplane crash, then meanders for quite a bit before really getting going with the climax. For older viewers, the sluggish bit in the middle is ideally where one would have gone to get an ice-cream safe in the knowledge you wouldn't be missing much.

Paramount's 4K Ultra HD transfer looks great, and the Dolby Atmos sound mix is a banging, crashing, rattling joy to listen to. This was the only disc provided for review. The US Blu-ray has a number of featurettes as extras but it's not clear if these will be carried over to the UK release.

The Nazi zombie / monster movie is a subgenre that's increasing in numbers with all the rapidity of the laboratory creations themselves. Of all these movies (Richard Raaphorst's excellent FRANKENSTEIN'S ARMY and the rather less excellent British series of OUTPOST movies come to mind) OVERLORD is by far the most lavish and definitely worth a view if you're in the mood for a decent action-horror movie.

Julius Avery's OVERLORD is out on DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Ultra HD from Paramount Home Media Distribution on Monday 11th March 2019