Dir.: Julius Avery; Cast: Jovan Adepo. Wyatt Russell, Mathilde Ollivier, Pilou Asbœk; USA 2018, 109 min.

Britain won the war? Not according to OVERLORD. Julius Avery (Son of a Gun) and his writers Billy Ray and Mark Smith transform the 1944 Normandy landings into a Zombie action saga where the Americans save the world (so what’s new?) and fulfilling a clear demand for full-on confrontation in our increasingly divided society.

The first ten minutes are the best: shades of Saving Private Ryan, this time played out on board an airplane re-enact the brutality of the invasion and its countless victims. After the survivors land with their parachutes, they make their way to a small French village. Here the Nazis have fortified a church, and installed a transmitter in the tower. The Americans have to blow it up. Taking shelter with Cloe (Ollivier) in a small house, the Yankees have to listen to SS office Wafner (Asbœk), who blackmails Cloe to sleep with him – or else he’ll take her little brother with meet to same treatment as her disfigured aunt. Corporal Ford (Russell) and his men storm down from the attic, taking Wafner prisoner, before he can realise his threat. Meanwhile Private Boyce (Adepo), an Afro-American softie, discovers the Nazis are experimenting with the local population, turning them into Zombies in their quest to create a re-animation serum in a bizarre historical re-write. Apart from the historical faux-pas (American troops were strictly segregated in WWII), Overlord’s second rate video-game of makes the Normandy landings just an excuse: This is a cheap horror fest and even the decent production values cannot save it. AS

ON GENERAL RELEASE FROM Wednesday 7th November 2018