Over 8 years after J.J. Abrams surprised everyone with Cloverfield, the super-producer and the teams at Paramount and Bad Robot (Abrams' production company) seemed to finally figure out what they wanted to do with the concept. With the March 2016 release of 10 Cloverfield Lane, a stand-alone horror/thriller that was revealed to have a loose connection to Matt Reeves' original found-footage cult classic, Paramount seemed to establish Cloverfield as something of a modern Twilight Zone. These were individual movies connected by their ambiguous strangeness, but audiences would flock to them because of the franchise stamp. And then The Cloverfield Paradox ended up nearly destroying the whole thing. The sci-fi film ended up being, well, pretty terrible, so the studio dumped it on Netflix and wrote it off. Now, it appears that the idea behind 10 Cloverfield Lane has been abandoned, with Paramount opting to simply release high-concept genre movies on their own terms. A Quiet Place was a smash hit, but can Overlord find similar success? Earlier today, the first trailer debuted for the World War II-set horror movie- watch it below!
So this is.....not what I expected.
Abrams emphasized at CinemaCon that Overlord is NOT a new Cloverfield movie, and the very hard R-rating seems to indicate that he's not pulling a bait-and-switch on us (previous chapters in the franchise have been rated PG-13). But considering the reaction to the footage at the industry convention, I think I expected something more disturbing, more terrifying, and certainly much more serious. I can tell what this trailer is trying to do- it's aiming to catch audiences off-guard with the early World War II images, only to switch into something hyper-violent and insane. Hell, even Abrams said in the above article that Overlord is "batshit crazy," so I guess that's more of the goal than anything else. That being said, "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC is a very strange choice for this trailer, unless this really is just a gory romp more than a straight horror vehicle. Even if that is the point, the unnecessary focus on random horror buzz word (Chaos! Fear!) feels like a forced choice as well. This is a trailer that makes a lot of missteps, and I can't deny that I'm a little concerned.
On the other hand, this might just be an adjustment in expectations. After all, there's still much to enjoy here. A World War II horror movie is a brilliant idea, and the cast features great young actors like Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, John Magaro, and Bokeem Woodbine. And as indicated by this brief look, director Julius Avery clearly isn't playing around, going all-out with the blood and mayhem at every possible opportunity. Even though I expected something completely different when I pressed play, I'm cautiously optimistic that this film will deliver the goods.
Overlord hits theaters on November 9, a release date shift announced in coordination with this trailer. Maybe Paramount is just hoping to move it away from the October horror competition, but I think a November IMAX date still shows a lot of confidence in the final product.
So this is.....not what I expected.
Abrams emphasized at CinemaCon that Overlord is NOT a new Cloverfield movie, and the very hard R-rating seems to indicate that he's not pulling a bait-and-switch on us (previous chapters in the franchise have been rated PG-13). But considering the reaction to the footage at the industry convention, I think I expected something more disturbing, more terrifying, and certainly much more serious. I can tell what this trailer is trying to do- it's aiming to catch audiences off-guard with the early World War II images, only to switch into something hyper-violent and insane. Hell, even Abrams said in the above article that Overlord is "batshit crazy," so I guess that's more of the goal than anything else. That being said, "Hell's Bells" by AC/DC is a very strange choice for this trailer, unless this really is just a gory romp more than a straight horror vehicle. Even if that is the point, the unnecessary focus on random horror buzz word (Chaos! Fear!) feels like a forced choice as well. This is a trailer that makes a lot of missteps, and I can't deny that I'm a little concerned.
On the other hand, this might just be an adjustment in expectations. After all, there's still much to enjoy here. A World War II horror movie is a brilliant idea, and the cast features great young actors like Jovan Adepo, Wyatt Russell, John Magaro, and Bokeem Woodbine. And as indicated by this brief look, director Julius Avery clearly isn't playing around, going all-out with the blood and mayhem at every possible opportunity. Even though I expected something completely different when I pressed play, I'm cautiously optimistic that this film will deliver the goods.
Overlord hits theaters on November 9, a release date shift announced in coordination with this trailer. Maybe Paramount is just hoping to move it away from the October horror competition, but I think a November IMAX date still shows a lot of confidence in the final product.
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