Overlord [re-release] 2006

The cinematic canvas shifts to a tumultuous tableau as the year 1944 unfolds. Sergeant Eldson (Bokeen Woodbine), at the helm of a team of paratroopers, embarks on a perilous mission to dismantle a Nazi radio tower situated within the confines of a German church. As they near their objective, their plane is raked by enemy fire, and in a desperate bid for survival, the surviving men take to the skies before the aircraft meets its fiery demise. The paratroopers splash down into the water, their limbs entangled as they struggle to reach dry land.

Private Ed Boyce (Jovan Adepo) reunites with Corporal Ford (Wyatt Russell), only to be met with a senseless tragedy when he witnesses Sergeant Eldson being brutally executed by Nazi soldiers. Ford’s presence is a calming balm to the distraught Boyce as they regroup and locate their fellow comrades, Tibbet (John Magaro), Chase (Iain De Caestecker), and Dawson (Jacob Anderson). Their collective grief is momentarily suspended as they press onward, driven by their mission.

As they traverse the treacherous terrain, Dawson’s fateful misstep triggers a landmine, sending his lifeless body flying. The remaining soldiers retreat into the woods, where they stumble upon Chloe (Mathilde Ollivier), a French woman walking alone. Ford’s order to pursue her is met with urgency, as they must ensure their presence remains undetected.

Chloe reluctantly agrees to lead them back to her humble abode, where she lives with her young brother Paul (Gianny Taufer) and Aunt Simone (Eva Magyar), whose condition has taken a turn for the worse. As the soldiers take cover in the attic, Chloe’s attempts to reason with her neighbor, who has grown suspicious of her nocturnal activities, are met with failure.

Chloe’s village is soon beset by German patrols, and as she navigates the treacherous situation, she brings the American soldiers back to her home. Paul’s innocent curiosity is rebuffed by Tibbet before he and Chase venture out to reconnoiter their rendezvous point. Meanwhile, a gruesome execution unfolds outside, its horrors seared into Chloe’s memory as she recounts the fate that befell her own parents.

As Boyce’s bullet wound begins to heal under Chloe’s tender care, the tragic tale of her family is revealed. Moments of levity are afforded as Boyce connects with Paul, but this brief respite is shattered by the arrival of German soldiers led by Captain Wafner (Pilou Asbæk). Chloe’s vulnerability is exploited when Wafner attempts to assault her, but Boyce’s timely intervention saves her from further harm. The soldier is left trussed up in the attic, a prisoner of his own conscience.

As Ford dispatches Boyce on a perilous mission to locate the predetermined meeting point, our protagonist stumbles upon the eerie silhouette of a church, its towering structure looming like a specter of doom. The air is thick with tension as Boyce narrowly avoids detection, forced to take refuge in a truck overflowing with the lifeless bodies of his fallen comrades. As he navigates the desolate landscape, Boyce finds himself within the church’s musty confines, where the unholy stench of death hangs heavy.

Within the labyrinthine corridors, Boyce uncovers a gruesome laboratory, replete with the grotesque remnants of medical experimentation gone awry. The putrid smell of decay wafts through the air as he beholds a severed woman’s head, its lips moving in a macabre attempt to communicate with him. Nearby, a tattered bag contains a struggling, barely alive creature, its pitiful existence a stark reminder of the atrocities that have transpired.

As Boyce conceals himself from prying eyes, Dr. Schmidt, the mastermind behind these horrors (Erich Redman), makes his entrance. Boyce’s heart sinks as he realizes he is not alone; a fellow paratrooper, Rosenfeld (Dominic Applewhite), lies nearby, his body riddled with a massive needle that threatens to prove fatal.

With the swift and precise extraction of the needle, Boyce saves his comrade from certain doom and secures for himself a syringe containing an experimental serum. As they make their escape, the two soldiers flee into the night, driven by a desperate need to put an end to Schmidt’s sinister plans.

Upon their return to the attic, Boyce presents Ford with the mysterious serum, seeking insight into its purpose from Wafner. The taciturn Wafner remains tight-lipped, prompting Ford to unleash a torrent of violence upon him. Boyce then recounts his harrowing experience within the church, and Ford begins to formulate a plan to infiltrate the tower and bring Schmidt’s evil empire crashing down.

As Ford’s orders unfold, Chase is dispatched upstairs to free Wafner from his restraints, only to find himself on the receiving end of a brutal attack from the former prisoner. Wafner seizes Chase’s gun and unleashes a hail of bullets, leaving Chase mortally wounded. As his comrades rush to assist their fallen comrade, Boyce springs into action, injecting Chase with the fateful serum. Miraculously, Chase’s life is restored, but at a terrible cost: he begins to mutate at an alarming rate, his strength increasing exponentially as he succumbs to disorientation and bestial fury.

Chase’s transformation rapidly spirals out of control, causing him to lash out violently against his own comrades. Ford is forced to take drastic action, pouring bullet after bullet into Chase’s ravaged form in a desperate bid to subdue him. Boyce is left with no choice but to deliver the merciful blow, crushing Chase’s skull with all his might to end the horror. Wafner observes this gruesome spectacle with an unsettling calmness, revealing that the serum is merely a precursor to a Nazi plot to unleash a thousand-year reign of terror upon the world.

As Ford and his team regroup, they face a new crisis: Wafner’s daring escape, which sees him kidnap Paul and vanish into the night. With their comrade in peril and the enemy closing in, Ford makes the difficult decision to prioritize the destruction of the tower above all else, relegating Paul’s rescue to secondary status. Boyce and Chloe, however, remain steadfast in their determination to free their captive ally.

Meanwhile, Wafner returns to the laboratory, where he encounters Schmidt, his former captor now turned prisoner. With a malevolent glint in his eye, Wafner seizes two syringes containing the serum and injects himself, unleashing a rapid transformation that leaves him growing increasingly deranged and powerful.

As the Americans devise a plan to infiltrate the church, they utilize a German soldier as human bait, strapping explosives to his body and using him as a makeshift battering ram. Tibbet and Rosenfeld provide cover from outside, taking out enemy soldiers with ruthless efficiency. Boyce, Ford, and Chloe venture inside, only to face a maelstrom of violence as the Germans unleash hell upon them.

As Tibbet’s valiant efforts prove insufficient, Paul is finally extracted from the maelstrom of gunfire, while Tibbet himself falls prey to a crippling wound. Meanwhile, Boyce and Ford encounter Schmidt, whose mutated form has been transformed into Wafner, an unholy abomination that attacks them with unrelenting ferocity. Boyce valiantly engages Schmidt in a brutal hand-to-hand combat, successfully dispatching the mutated monstrosity. However, their victory is short-lived, as Wafner then turns its attention to Ford, impaling him on a gruesome meat hook. Undeterred, Boyce distracts Wafner, allowing Ford to inject himself with the serum and prepare for a fierce showdown against the monstrous creature.

As Wafner closes in, Boyce seizes an opportunity to change the tide of battle by hurling a tank at the beast, triggering a devastating explosion that sends the laboratory’s infernal machinery into chaos. With Wafner momentarily stunned, Boyce rushes to Ford’s aid, only to be met with a solemn decision: Ford chooses to remain behind and ensure that the laboratory’s dark secrets are erased along with its very existence. As the countdown begins, Boyce makes a hasty retreat, while Ford readies an explosive device, his ultimate sacrifice aimed at obliterating every last remnant of the monstrous experiments.

As the tower succumbs to the blast, Boyce reunites with his comrades outside, bearing the somber news that Ford has given his life to ensure the destruction of the laboratory and its malevolent contents. Chloe tenders to Tibbet’s wounded form, as Boyce reports back to his superiors on the mission, omitting any mention of the sinister experiments conducted within the tower’s depths. His superior responds by informing Boyce that he and his men will be reassigned, their fates forever entwined with the secrets they’ve uncovered.