From Iron Man to Iron Man II, throw an AC/DC track on a film trailer, and it automatically makes it awesome.
That appears to be incontrovertible, and the extra cool thing is, as a band they have been around for so long, they are practically their own genre.
Which means you could make another 10 trailers for 10 separate films using 10 different Acca Dacca songs, and they would all be fierce!
And this is even taking into account that they’d all sound the same…. but not really… (but yeah really. Ish).

Anyway, this brings us to the JJ Abrams produced WW2 horror film Overlord, which – as just mentioned; because of its soundtrack alone – appears to promise much. But does it deliver hells bells or more dirty deeds done dirt cheap?

The rumour that it was a Cloverfield prequel (which is bound to happen if the words “horror” and “Abrams” are mentioned in the same sentence) is a nice one, but not really warranted.

For a start, the Big Bad is pretty much as you’d expect based on the afore-mentioned trailer (zombies born of science!) so thematically we’re not talking space Godzilla.

Plus, the one thing that ties Cloverfield and Cloverfield Lane (I think it’s safe to say we’re all retconning Paradox out of our collective memory) is that they are brilliantly constructed and well unfolded films – they both keep moving at a real page-turning pace.

And that’s where Overlord falls down. Its opening 15 mins IS breathtaking – although it is spoiled just a tad by the fact Tom Cruise already sort of did it in Edge of Tomorrow (ie: airdrop on a war zone ahead of schedule due to plane-blowing-‘upage’).

But from there it gets a little bogged down in pace by not really giving you anything that keeps you guessing, or shouting “sick twist bro!” in your head.

In fact, from this point onwards the tension is fine but not seizure-inducing – and the filmmakers decision to spend time on some character interaction (as opposed to not jumping straight into the next action piece) is to be commended.

But before too long you do find yourself wishing it’d get on with it.

When it does it’s not exceptionally ground breaking – although the tension and scares are certainly there. And there is one more moment that you’ll be YouTubing for years to come, as it’s an awesome scene. But apart from that you are left with a taste of this-could-be-great-but-it’s-definitely-under-cooked…. parmigiana.
And that’s just good chicken that (whilst good) will let you down.

If you do see this movie, give it an IMAX level viewing (or if it lines up in your neck of the woods – 4DX) because trust me,the louder this film is when you see it, the better your ride will be.

The Diagnosis:

Although not terrible, it definitely could have done with another layer of messed up, or one more smart idea, or just some good old fashion clever dialogue.
From that point of view, Dead Snow was a better Nazi Zombie movie.

• Antony Yee