The Horde

(2009)

Dir: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher

Well, this is about as simple as it gets.

Talk about getting straight into the action.

The Horde, from directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher, begins with a crack team of heavily armed police officers conducting a raid on the headquarters of a local militia. Unfortunately for both sides, their little conflict must take a backseat tonight. Why you ask? Because the rest of France appears to have turned into zombies.

And that’s it.

That’s all we get.

From here it’s nothing but blood, guts and bullets, as our heavily emphasised ANTI-heroes try to battle their way through the swarm of undead and out of the tower block. And you know what? It’s rather fun.

It is as though they have taken Ving Rhames’ character from Zack Snyder’s 2005 Dawn of the Dead remake, cloned him several times, taught him French, and made sequel. So obviously there’s a lot of machismo here, a lot of puffing of chests and flexing of biceps and cocking of guns, but not much in way of witty dialogue. Still, it still does a better job of manliness than Stallone’s lecherous old geriatrics in The Expendables.

The one female character present comes out looking perhaps even more badass than any of her male counterparts, but she doesn’t do much for the female cause as a whole, becoming one of the coldest women I’ve seen in a film for a long time.

And though it is hard to make a zombie film that looks bad, The Horde’s choice of setting, overlooking the dark and burning spectacle of the French cityscape, is one of the more arresting Apocalyptic images in recent zombie cinema, similar to the fate of Manchester in Danny Boyle’s stunning 28 Days Later.

High praise indeed for what is essentially a bit of boy’s own fun. It just lacks that one great, memorable character to make it something special.

*** / *****

“J’adore des zombies.”