Going into the movie “Overload” I didn’t have any major expectations. I knew very little about it beyond a trailer here or there. The thing that got me interested in seeing this movie was the action/horror hybrid the writers seemed to take. Sure action movies can have horror and horror movies will have action, however, both aspects seemed prominent in this movie. This led to the movie being refreshingly new and surprisingly good.

One of this movies strong points would definitely have to be the action. The moving opens on a scene often showed in the trailers to this movie; A US plane taking heavy fire from ground AA guns in war ridden skies. The scene evokes a feeling of helplessness as countless other planes are shot down and many die due to the high caliber rounds piercing the plans floor. Compared to a lot of recent war movies this was refreshing as, similar to saving private ryan, the scene seemed realistic and I felt that it really captured the feeling of war with modern special effects. Unfortunately I felt that the movie became increasingly unrealistic in its war aspect as it progressed, with each main characters seeming to become super soldiers with perfect aim as they mowed through countless waves of nazi soldiers without hassle. However the movie doubles back on this aspect as it has no trouble killing off likable main characters for emotional effect that actually meant something to the viewers. Throughout the rest movie there are plenty of explosions, gunfights, flamethrowers, fist fights and so on. In terms of action this movie is full of it and, while not completely realistic, the cinematography is well done and effective in such a way that it kept me interested through the entire movie.

Moving on to horror I must admit that there was less of it than I’d hoped. However, the interesting ways it portrayed the horror aspect definitely made up for this. Yes, there were jump scares and a scene with that god awful truth or dare “creepy” CGI smile so common in horror movies recently. However, it did take steps to try and deviate from the norm. While the movie wasn’t extremely horrifying there were plenty of genuinely creepy moments played out over a decent period of time at moments when you’d least expect it. One of these such scenes is after the death of one of the US soldiers. The main character brings him back to life and the scene lures the watcher in with a false sense of security with a seemingly successful resurrection. However, the soldiers sanity quickly declines before he breaks his own neck, bones protruding from his skin, and attacks his fellow soldiers. This paired with the excessive gore appealed to me even if there wasn’t as much horror as I’d hoped.

Next I’ll move onto character development. Very early on in the movie I could tell that the writers really tried to put life into these characters, attempting to give them meaning and depth through the dreams they had for after the war to humanizing them through their actions and backgrounds. Like many other things in this movie I appreciate the work put into it, however, I feel that there was more that could have been done. With the main character it seemed as if by the ending of the movie he hadn’t really grown and his character trait of being a softy that wouldn’t hurt a fly was constantly countered by his excessive aggression in certain scenarios. Such as not hesitating to shoot a nazi scientist or bashing the head of one of his friends into a bloody pulp. This particular scene showed that even one of the more violent main characters though it was over excessive and brutal. Overall it was disappointing to see that some of the other characters saw more character development than the main character.

Another problem with this movie is the countless use of the “saved last second” trope, to me it was very obvious throughout, became increasingly predictable and was definitely something I noticed very early on. However, despite its flaws, I enjoyed this movie but feel it was too ambitious. Although generally better than a lot of recent horror and action movies, more development time could have helped improve it. It felt like the writers were pressed for time and struggled to fit all the pieces together perfectly. This is not a bad thing however as the movie was very close to making it work through good cinematography, engaging action and horror scenes that were genuinely disturbing rather than a cheap jumpscares. Overall I’m excited to see what the producers will create in the future and would definitely recommend this movie.