Overlord’s first trailer is tonally all over the place, but still somehow appealing

Overlord is supposed to be a horror film, but the first trailer doesn’t always call up feelings of suspense or revulsion quite like it should.

Overlord looks like the kind of movie you rent one night when you’re not sure what you want to watch, but you know for sure that it’s not the latest prestige film and it’s not a comedy. It’s the movie you rent when you’re in the mood for something completely off-the-wall.

Of course, there’s still a need for movies like that, so props to J.J. Abrams for producing this one. But it just makes watching a trailer for a movie like this a little difficult, because Overlord seems to take itself a little more seriously than all this, or it at least takes itself seriously enough to start out like it’s just another World War II movie.

Then things get … stranger. (Pun intended, even though Stranger Things is part of Netflix, while this movie comes from Paramount.) Sure, the trailer whips back into more war action, with a flamethrower making a grand appearance at one point, but there’s also horror and a loud rock song, none of which seem to really go together all that well.

And despite all that, there’s still something intriguing about this film. Maybe it’s that it’s absolutely willing to get weird. Perhaps it’s the fact that there’s a character who’s black and actually seems to be the main character of the film, because these things still don’t happen as often as they should. Also, here’s hoping that there are more characters of color in general, including women, in the movie. (There should be equal opportunity to fight Nazis.)

But here’s the trailer nevertheless. Take a look and see what you think about it:

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Will you be heading to the theaters in November, or will you wait until you can watch this on the comfort of your couch?