Though there’s never really a bad time to make anti-war art, it’s hard to pick a more potent time than right now to release a big-budget adaptation of Erich Maria Remarque’s All Quiet on the Western Front, which is even more harrowing at the moment then when you might have read it as a teenager. Netflix heard the call, and director Edward Berger took up the mantle, bringing us an all-German take on the tale, which is a tall task, given one already has a pretty-iconic film version and its legacy to contend with. It premiered at TIFF last month, and while we didn’t get a chance to check it out while we were in Toronto, we’ve heard some good things about it, and you can get a glimpse at what fresh hells await you in this trailer that Netflix dropped on Thursday morning.
Take a look:
Here’s a synopsis, though, honestly, you probably read this book in high school (as you should have) or might have seen the Lewis Milestone version that won Best Picture back in the early heyday of the Academy Awards:”
‘All Quiet on the Western Front’ tells the gripping story of a young German soldier on the Western Front of World War I. Paul and his comrades experience first-hand how the initial euphoria of war turns into desperation and fear as they fight for their lives, and each other, in the trenches. The film from director Edward Berger is based on the world renowned bestseller of the same name by Erich Maria Remarque.“
You won’t have to wait much longer to watch this and subsequently get really bummed out, because it’s already out in select theaters (should you be lucky enough to live in a city where they actually do put Netflix movies on the screen, but if you’re like the rest of us, you can check out All Quiet on the Western Front when it arrives on Netflix on October 28. It should make for some genuinely scary Halloween viewing, too, but it’s probably not the kind of thing we’d recommend busting out at the party.