Overlord has arrived.
Director Julius Avery's mash-up of drama at the turning point of World War II and Nazi
science experiments straight out of Wolfenstein is finally here, riding a strong wave of critical
buzz as it lands in theaters for viewers eager for a little pulpy period horror.
How deep do those Nazi experiments go?
Let's find out as we dissect the ending of Overlord.
Spoilers ahead, obviously it's a minefield out there.
Before our reluctant heroes from the U.S. Army even get a whiff of what's going on in
the lab beneath the village's church, they enter the home of Chloe, who lives with what
she describes as a "very sick" aunt.
We figure out what's up pretty quickly, and Chloe confirms that the illness is actually
the result of experimentation done by the Nazis at the church.
Then the action picks up, and the aunt's illness is barely mentioned again.
While our heroes are busy blowing up the lab, though, it's hard not to wonder: How many
people did the Nazis experiment on only to release back to their homes at some point?
How many of them are there, and how far back does that trail stretch?
Even if the lab itself is gone, the victims aren't, and its seems likely that someone
from the Allied Forces will find them.
As Boyce and his compatriots dig further into what's really going on beneath the church,
they discover that the mysterious experiments are all based on a substance that occurs underground
naturally, somehow having the capability to reanimate dead bodies and supercharge live
ones if properly refined.
"What is this?"
The Nazis haven't perfected the process yet, but the serum clearly has some powerful effects,
and they seem to have a constant supply.
By the end of the film, the lab is gone, but if the zombie-making tar was there all along,
isn't it possible that there's a good deal more of it down there?
What's so special about this particular place?
If this much progress has been made in this one French village, it's likely that other
Nazis are aware of the tar's capabilities, and they're already looking for more elsewhere
in Europe and there may well be more out there.
The lab might be destroyed, but the search for the substance that can grant a Thousand
Year Reich is definitely not.
It's clear from what little we know of the Nazis' actual scientific process that there's
been a lot of trial and error involved in the serum they're developing, and we don't
actually know how they realized they could use the tar beneath the church for that purpose
in the first place.
Overlord is a film that plays on reports of secret Nazi programs geared towards all sorts
of occult things, so the film can get away with a lot.
This atmosphere — plus the strange dead animal the soldiers discover in the woods
— hint that there were definitely experiments of a different kind in this village before
the serum was developed.
Was the doctor up to some kind of gene splicing?
Was he trying to create hybrid war dogs of some kind?
We don't know, but the Nazis' sloppy operation implies that there's more to be found out
there than just human zombies.
Overlord takes as many genre liberties as it wants, but it also follows certain war
movie structural conventions — and perhaps nowhere is that more evident than in the story
of Chloe and her little brother Paul, who bond with the soldiers after they hole up
in their house.
A romantic connection between Boyce and Chloe is heavily implied.
What happens now?
Do the soldiers just move on and leave these two to rebuild their lives?
They might be separated temporarily, but the bonding experience of the mission and Boyce's
sensitive soul makes them being apart permanently seem unlikely.
He might march on to Berlin, sure, but we feel like he'll be back eventually to get
to know the French girl a little better.
At the beginning of Overlord, Ford is the rough, cynical officer who's been through
hell and isn't about to go soft for anyone, while Boyce is the innocent young trainee
who's terrified of war and once proved himself too sensitive to even kill a mouse.
By the end of the film, Ford is dead, and Boyce has absorbed many of his lessons.
He's capable of killing, thinking on his feet, and winning in a hard fight, even if much
of his innocence and compassion has been preserved.
We get the sense that Boyce isn't likely to just leave Chloe in the village forever, but
what about the rest of his military career?
If the film adheres to the same World War II timeline as the real world, then Boyce
still has nearly a year of fighting left to do, and then he might be left in Europe to
clean up after the Nazis when Germany surrenders.
He's had experience with the supernatural now, even if he's not telling anyone about
it.
Will he just leave that in his past, or will he be keeping an eye open for other Nazi facilities
like the one beneath the church, ready to strike as necessary?
We're betting on the latter.