(Judge Dredd Megazine, Rebellion)
The slew of zombie films continues with The Horde, a French feature from newcomers Yannick Dehan and Benjamin Rocher. By the directors’ own admission, they stole a trick from From Dusk Till Dawn, beginning their film as an ostensibly “straight” crime-thriller as a group of cops turn vigilante to take out a crime gang in a tower block. Things are already violent and gory before the zombie apocalypse hits. There’s an impressive moment where the people who were beating each others’ brains out just minutes earlier reach the roof of the building to see Paris aflame and hundreds of walking dead on the ground.
After that, it’s largely business as usual, with the action confined to the tower-block (as in the REC films) and the script overlaying France’s racial-underclass hang-ups onto the smash-the-zombie proceedings. It’s not easy to care about The Horde’s characters, potentially interesting as some of them are (Claude Perron is a strong presence as a ravaged-looking woman cop.) The claustrophobic scenes in the oppressively familiar dark landings and passages blur into each other, much as the film blurs in turn into the overcrowded lurching mass that’s today’s zombie genre. But the hypercharged, shoot-em-up, blow-em-up finale is impressive and Romero himself would approve The Horde’s final sting. Dehan and Rochet’s budget was reportedly two million Euros, about which horror fans could be forgivably sceptical (remember the “£45”-budget British zombie film Colin?) If it is true, let’s hope the DVD includes a thorough Making-Of report, as that could be far better than the film itself.
