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_Film Reviews ,

The Horde Film Review

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I really had no idea of what to expect from The Horde. I knew it involved gangsters, police and zombies. I had visions of some sort of zombie holocaust with the terror quotient turned all the way up to 11 as only the French can do. Similar in terror as recent original French hardcore horror films like; Martyrs, Switchblade Romance, Frontier(s) and Ils all absolutely horrible and engaging at the same time.

  Video: THE HORDE - Official English Trailer                
The Horde doesn’t take that road it’s more of a gritty urban crime update on George A. Romero’s zombie sensibilities. It starts off as a potentially interesting French crime revenge story, with the criminals attending a funeral before heading off to avenge their recently fallen comrade. This is quickly turned on it’s head. They head into a derelict apartment block run by criminals. Here we meet some some rather efficient and brutal gangsters. However the confrontation is interuppted as all hell breaks loose outside.

Pretty soon the cops and the hoods have formed a shaky alliance as they become aware that something unholy is happening on the streets of Paris. While they are holed up in the building to fend off a Zombie attack from both the growing mob of zombies outside as well as the recently zombiefied victims of the hoods on the inside of the building.

The real strength of The Horde are the unique and interesting characters; the police are like the Reservoir Dogs and the criminals are like the gang from City of God.

Unfortunately what seems to be the most interesting character is killed of rather quickly leaving a more ethical second in charge. But all is not lost as we are then introduced to what might just be the most un PC whack job to grace screens since Archie Bunker, this guy is ex French Foreign Legion and spent some time in Vietnam. He also has a stockpile of bootleg liquor and homemade arms. For some reason he thinks the zombies are Chinese and takes to pulling them apart with great vigour.

The group then machete, shoot, grenade, machine gun, head bash and karate kick the zombies as they make their way to the only safe exit.

The acting was what you would expect from an action driven zombie feature, albeit slightly hemmed in by the script, the effects were good, even the tale follows Romero’s formula a little too close it's a cracking yarn.




The Horde is currently roaming the streets on DVD. THE ESTABLISHING SHOT: THE HORDE FILM REVIEW