The premise of the Horde is that a group of police go to take down a Nigerian drug cartel after one of their own is killed, however, there is a zombie outbreak and the city becomes under siege. Trapped in a block of flats cops and crooks must assist each other to survive.
Zombies recently have been mixed productions, excluding virus or affective flicks, 28 Days Later, Crazies, and Rec. They have been the butt end of successful comedies (Zombieland, Shaun of the Dead), disappointing recent offerings from the genres defining creator Romero and endless low budgeters, including the over praised Colin.
Borrowing from the best and despite some unnecessary choppy editing and the racial tone of Arnaud Bordas screenplay it has many redeeming features, the story, issues of trust and loyalty play out nicely. The acting is excellent from the supporting cast, Eriq Ebouaney and Claude Perron stand out.
Thankfully, Horde is a rounded and entertaining piece of cinema, taking the subject matter violently seriously. It's a big budget well acted French flick, plenty of nasty zombies, adequate developed characters, guns and gore. It's finely directed by Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher but note worthy is the lighting. The perfect eerie, ominous look and feel, the dimly lit corridors and well dressed sets. It's a very gloomy, gory film, this coupled with Christopher Lennertz's score and some sound effects deliver lots of scares.
Notwithstanding subtitles and/or dubbed voices, "La horde" is not just one of the best dead films in the last twenty years, but also possibly has the most fitting bleak endings of a zombie film to date.
