The Horde

There's been something of a new wave French horror in recent years with numerous titles representing different parts of the genre emanating from across the Channel. The latest of these to come my way is The Horde, an action/horror film which sees a group of criminals and law enforcement officials having to team up to take on the undead masses that have taken over Paris.

The film begins in an abandoned area of land where a couple of policeman find the badly beaten dead body of a cap and the boyfriend of another of their colleagues. After a quick cut to the funeral when they promise his widow that there will be no casualties from the revenge attack, they go to an apartment block, fairly heavily armed and wearing balaclavas with the express purpose of finding the gang responsible for the murder and killing them all.

The raid does not quite go to plan, with the gang figuring out that there are people outside and opening fire before the cops get a chance to barge in and catch them unprepared. Whilst ADEWALE, the Nigerian gang leader, is by rating of the cops for a) having the temerity to think they could take on and b) coming armed with fairly puny weapons, 'toy guns' as he calls them, some bedraggled and extremely frenetic men with blood all over their faces burst into the room and begin attacking and eating whoever they can make their hands on.

One of the gangsters, a Czech, has the majority of his neck eaten by these zombies which shocks everyone else into temporarily forgetting their differences and trying to barricade themselves into the apartment where they can be safe from the carnivorous creatures outside. ADEWALE's lookouts know that the men inside were just the tip of the iceberg and there are many more outside descending on the building as they speak so time is of the essence to get down to the ground floor and away from the apartment block before it is completely surrounded and they just end up as zombie food.


This is where the influence of something like Assault on Precinct 13 (or Rio Bravo before it) is clear for all to see as they are all films set in a confined space where criminals and the forces of law and order must join together in order to defeat a superior foe outside. The zombie film is the perfect setting for this kind of situation that you can have tensions bubbling under the surface and schisms within the group threatening to split open at any second, with Night of the Living Dead as a perfect example.

Just to be very clear, this is no Night of the Living Dead but it is a splendidly crafted, utterly involving and fine horror film which built up fairly slowly before a final onslaught on the horde on the ground floor of the building which is blocking the exit. There are some incredible set pieces such as the cop standing on a car, surrounded by zombies and using his two pistols to dispatch as many as he can before grabbing his machete when he runs out of ammo and just hacking away. This is a film where you know there will be bloodshed as, from the initial attack when an extremely strong zombie tears out the Czech gangster's throat and it takes a short-range blast to the head from a shotgun to break him down, things really don't improve from there.


By the time they join forces with the night watchman who not only has a grenade, but a huge machine gun with an extremely long ammo belt and the intention to use every single word, all bets are off and it is wholesale slaughter whilst they are still standing. As recent zombie films go, this is extremely watchable with fairly well developed characters and an easily recognisable and identifiable situation. I don't think there is anything particularly intelligent and the subtext -- it is just simply an adrenaline ride of a film which goes overboard on the red stuff and violence, but in a good way.

The Disc

Extra Features
The making of all, to give it its proper name, Baadass' is a fairly in-depth 20 minute piece with interviews with the two directors, producer and actors and enough B-roll and behind the scenes footage to turn it into a feature that is well worth your time and attention. Perhaps the most fascinating piece of information is when it is revealed that the film was rated 12 in France because of the fantasy/comic book nature of the violence when, in the UK, it has an 18 certificate! It may not be the longest featurette but it does the job.

There are three deleted scenes, running at about 15 minutes in total, which have to be selected individually and are more extended than deleted scenes are some weren't completely omitted. It is interesting to see where they started from in order to cut the film down to just over 90 minutes.

Finally, you have just under five minutes worth of storyboards which run sequentially and are occasionally coloured in drawings rather than the typical pencil sketch variety (though the latter dominate the gallery) and the theatrical trailer.


The Picture
The anamorphic widescreen transfer is very impressive with excellent clarity in the many dark scenes; almost the whole film takes place at night and, at the end when you see daylight, it looks extremely odd. Generally, detail level is high, colours are bright, strong and realistic and contrast levels are superb, just proving that there is still life in DVD yet.

The SFX make-up is absolutely first-class with terrific zombie effects and, when people are attacked, there is a real visceral quality and must have come with integrating CGI to supplement the excellent latex and prosthetic work -- it is a far cry from Tom Savini's groundbreaking work on Martin and Dawn of the Dead! Aside from the CGI skylines where it is quite obvious that the actors were shot against green screen, the CGI is generally very good and hard to spot.


The Sound
Rather bizarrely, you have the option of Dolby Digital French 5.1 or English 5.1 and I found the dub track to be ill fitting and utterly distracting whereas the native language soundtrack was superbly delivered and has excellent subtitles with the translator doing well to keep the slight slang term and not translating things literally so that "depeche" comes across as "look alive" rather than "quick" or "fast". I have heard far worse dub tracks and this one will be the soundtrack of choice for those viewers who don't like subtitles but I would recommend that everyone else goes with the original French.

As well as crisp dialogue, the surrounds are rarely idle and are frequently employed for the more action oriented scenes where there is gunfire and yelling coming from all around the room.


Final Thoughts
I can see why this did well on the Festival circuit as is the sort of film that would work extremely well when playing to a cinema packed full of horror fans. I really enjoyed watching it and can imagine that it's the sort of film that people will enjoy it while it lasts without having to think about any social or political subtext of the sort that elevated Romero's zombie films to another level altogether.