The Horde (2009)

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nTitle: The Horde (2009)

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nDirectors: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher

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nCast: Eric Ebouaney, Claude Perron, Aurelin Recoing, Dou DounMasta,

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nReview:

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nAlong with vampires, zombies are the most overused creaturenin horror film history. Like Sherlock Holmes, James Bond or Dracula, the zombienmovie will never die. They’ll lay dormant for a while until a director comesnalong and re-invents the genre again, then we’ll get a whole new wave of zombienmovies and so on and so on. This is what happened with the release of 28 DaysnLater (2002) and Resident Evil (2002). The zombie movie was dormant during mostnof the 90, but when those two films hit the scene and made some serious cash atnthe box office, suddenly zombie movies were cool again, then came Dawn of thenDead (2004) and blamo, that film decided zombie films would be around for anwhile, cause dammit, apparently the general population can’t get enough of thenundead. We’ve even got a whole television series based on the living dead! Andnso, this latest rash of zombie madness has lasted until today, wherensurprisingly, it is still going strong! Personally, I’m looking forward tonWorld War Z (2013); it looks like it will end up being the mother of all zombienmovies; here’s hoping! 

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nZombie movies that come from abroad, like say Europe or Japan are evennmore interesting then American zombie films because they can go further withnthe gore and the horror elements. The biggest benefit that European filmmakersnhave is that their ratings system isn’t as strict as the MPAA, so they  don’t have to worry about editing the gore or the violence inntheir films as much because they don’t have to cut their movie down to get an ‘R’ or a ‘PG-13’ rating; which of coursentranslates to far gorier horror films. Examples of this are films like Martyrsn(2008), High Tension (2003), Frontier(s) (2007) and Inside (2007). The lastnthree films on that list are French horror films inspired by American Horror, funnynthing is that these films took the levels of graphic violence and gore furthernthen the very films that inspired them, and they are great horror films by thenway, highly recommend any of those films I’ve mentioned above. They are thencream of the crop of French horror as far as I’m concerned. And so, speaking ofnFrench horror films, today I’ll be reviewing The Horde; a zombie film thatncomes to use from two first time French filmmakers Yannick Dahan and BenjaminnRocher. All I gotta say is wowzers, what a debut!

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nSame as in many zombie films, The Horde does not give a fullnblown crystal clear explanation about how the zombies got here, the zombiesnsimply show up and we have to deal with them. In this case, the story centersnaround a very disparate group of strangers who suddenly find themselves trappednat the top of an apartment building; depending on each other to survive thenzombie menace. Problem is that the group of people couldn’t be any morendifferent from each other, some are gangsters, others are the policemen thatnwere going to perform a raid on said gangsters and others are simply civiliansnwho live in the building. So the gangsters and the cops have to put theirndifferences aside so they can deal with the zombies, question is: will they? Onntop of all that, they can’t simply walk out of the building because everynhallway and staircase of the building is populated by hordes of zombies! Whatnto do? What to do?

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nThe thing about The Horde is that it goes step by stepnthrough the zombie movie formula, and if you’ve seen a lot of zombie films,nthen there’s not much on this one that you haven’t seen before. We get thengroup of humans who hate each other, which is something that George Romeronloved to do with his own zombie films, to make the humans more villainous thannthe zombies themselves, to portray the humans as their own worst enemies. Onnthis one it’s Gangsters vs. Cops and the white man vs. the black man, which ofncourse brings Night of the Living Dead (1968) to mind. We have one of the goodnguys turn into a zombie, we have the lonely zombie who breaks into the house,nwe have the scene where the good guys find a stash of weapons, we have the goodnguy who sacrifices himself for the good of the team, the asshole who turns intona hero and last but not least, the good guys looking at the apocalypse from thenroof of a building. For Christ’s sake, all we needed to complete the zombie clichénlist was a scene with the good guys writing “Alive Inside!” on the roof of thenbuilding. So yeah, there’s that “been there done that” feeling to the film, butnin spite of all this, did The Horde manage to bring anything new to the table? Doesnit at the very least entertain? That’s a very resounding HELL YEAH! This zombienmovie rocked!

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n What I enjoyed the most about the film is how excessive itnis. It really goes overboard with its themes. Where an American film mightnrestrain itself with the amount of stabbings that a character will inflict uponna zombie, on this film the character stabs a zombie 30 times and they will shownthe 30 stabs. If a character is going to fight a zombie, the fight is extensivenand gruesome. When a character is confronted with a horde of zombies…trust me,nthings get gory. Wanna see an old man blow a horde of zombies away with a hugenass machine gun? Look no further! By the way, this reminds me, The Horde hasnone of the most memorable zombie sequences on any zombie film EVER! This isngreat because every zombie movie should have at least one memorable scene, but thisnscene I’m talking about really takes the taco as one of the best. I’m speakingnof course of the scene where one of the characters is surrounded by hundreds ofnzombies all around him and he goes nuts with his guns and his machetes…trulynawesome, I double dare any true zombie fan out there not to clap by the timenthat scene is over. But there are many moments like that one on this film whichnis really what makes it stand out. They went out of their way to shock us, sonkudos to these filmmakers for aiming for that and achieving it gloriously. Thenfilm might be walking on tired ground, but it does so with gruesome gusto.

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nOnce again French horror has kicked American horrors ass. ThenHorde did everything you’d see in an American horror film but with that muchnmore blood and violence. Save for a dull moment near the middle of the film wherencharacters start talking about their own personal experiences and view pointsnabout the zombie apocalypse, most of the film is filled with none stop gore andnaction, as a horror fan and a zombie fan, I walked away both surprised andnpleased. I say give this film a chance; if you love your zombie movies gory andnviolent, you will end up loving it. In my book, this is truly awesome zombienfilm that deserves more exposure. So this is an emergency broadcast from ThenFilm Connoisseur to all those zombie loving fiends out there: go rent/buy thisnmovie now!  

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nRating: 4 out of 5 

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