User reviews

The French film "La Horde" doesn't exactly bring a fresh approach to the over saturated zombie genre, yet is still entertaining enough for what it is. It benefits from its breakneck pace and intensity, and is just as much about character as it is bloodshed. (Not that it skimps in the gore department at all, though, far from it.) A quartet of detectives - Aurore (Claude Perron), Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins), Jimenez (Aurelien Recoing), and Tony (Antoine Oppenheim), find the dead body of a colleague and turn rogue, vowing to avenge his death. Unfortunately, things don't go as planned: first, their quarry, gangster Adewale (Eriq Ebouaney), is able to get the drop on them, and start torturing them, then this big mess becomes an even bigger one when scores upon scores of the living dead start to overwhelm humanity, as the apocalypse seems to have begun. While this is all pretty predictable in terms of the script, "La Horde" does manage to entertain by ensuring that its audience never gets bored. It starts quietly enough, but soon it's kicked itself into a high gear and has stayed there. Some zombie cinema lovers may take exception to the fact that these are very FAST zombies, as well as to the generous array of digital rather than practical carnage, but if you don't concern yourself too much with those elements, you may find this a reasonable viewing experience. The characters, by and large, are NOT sympathetic, including the cops, so the lack of rooting interest may make this hard for some people to follow. Still, as in any film with a similar premise, there is a certain amusement in seeing cops and crooks alike being forced to team up in order to survive - and, as we can see, the crooks aren't completely one- dimensional. The acting is good for this sort of thing. Both Martins and Ebouaney have a formidable screen presence, and Martins has one hell of a great exit where he truly goes down fighting. While "La Horde" may not be among the most stimulating films of its kind - at least in an intellectual way - one could definitely do far worse, as it manages to maintain a fever pitch for much of its duration. Seven out of 10.

Not recommended for fans of typical zombie films.

Recommended for those who have been waiting for an independent horror film which does not simply make fun of the genre.

A team of angry Parisian police officers vow revenge against a gang lead by two Nigerian brothers who have recently killed a friend of theirs. They lead a seemingly suicidal, unsanctioned, raid on the gang's compound and are almost immediately captured. As the torture, interrogation, and killing of police slowly reaches an apex, it becomes apparent that the cops and gangsters should probably be the least of each other's worries. Inexplicably, zombies are destroying civilization, and Paris is burning. Don't be fooled by the complete absurdity of this premise. The Horde, though redolent with the usual genre-defining campiness and cliché, is not a self-parody, and does not bother to explain itself.

Aside from Mr. Romero's more serious efforts, I have rarely seen a zombie film which was created with the level of TLC that went into The Horde. Most of the characters actually have their own personalities and the acting is good. The script is, though predictable, a lot less absurd than the usual horror film, and never insults your intelligence. Though the film is not utterly humorless, it stops well short of comedy, and carries its plot admirably. The visual effects and choreography are excellent. Claude Perron's fight scenes are especially entertaining.

When detective Mathias Rivoallan is found murdered by the gang led by the Nigerian Markudi (Eriq Ebouaney), detectives Jimenez (Aurélien Recoing), Aurore (Claude Perron), Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins) and Tony (Antoine Oppenheim) decide to revenge the death of his friend. The vigilantes plot bloodshed, executing Markudi, his brother Bola (Doudou Masta) and the other gangsters in the abandoned building where they are gathered. However, things go wrong when the watchman arrives and the violent gang subdues the quartet and tortures them. Meanwhile, the lookouts of the gang hear explosions, sirens and the weird sound of rabble. Sooner the survivors discover that the building is under siege of a horde of walking dead and the hungered zombies want to eat them. Ouesseem and Aurore team up with Markudi, Bola, Grego (Jo Prestia) and the veteran René (Yves Pignot) and together they have to fight against the zombies trying to find an exit from the building.

"La Horde" is an insanely gore and violent French horror film. The gore recalls "Braindead", but without the black humor of the trash cult movie of Peter Jackson. The plot is full of action, but none of the characters is likable. The origin of the walking dead is not developed and has only a minor explanation on television that mentions an epidemic. On the contrary of George Romero's slow zombies, in this flick they run like hell. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "Legião do Mal" ("Legion of the Evil")

The film has a frantic pace and the first scene is the discovery of a police officer found dead in a rubbish pit. At the funeral his colleagues vow to kill the men responsible and track them down to a condemned and abandoned tower block on the city outskirts. The raid isn't too successful and the police find themselves at the mercy of the violent gang members. However, something stirs outside in the night and within minutes all hell breaks loose. The cops and gang members must reluctantly work together if they want to escape from the tower block alive. There are one or two scenes of complete overkill and plenty of blood to keep zombie fans happy. Don't really know to refer to them as zombies or not but they are like the infected in 28 days later. The film only really slows down in the middle for a short period before heading to a bloody and violent conclusion.

Certainly one of the better zombie films to be released in the last few years and very enjoyable.

There is always an argument among zombie purists. Should the walk slow as in most zombie films, or can they run? This is the running type, so the purists may be disappointed.

Yes, there was blood and gore - plenty of it. No self-respecting zombie movie can exist without it, just as no self-respecting vampire movie would eschew blood for glitter.

It was non-stop action from start to finish. As you would expect in real life, it was loud, very loud. These people were literally screaming for their lives.

The ending was predicable, but effective nonetheless. Just could not take my eyes off Claude Perron (Amélie) throughout the film. She did a superb job, as did Eriq Ebouaney (Lumumba, Hit-man, Transporter 3).

A group of law enforcement agents raid a building where some criminals are hold up. This is in retaliation for the brutal murder of one of their own and to rescue others held hostage. The raid has unexpected consequences.

This movie was off to a great start once the raid of the building commenced. It was very realistic; very tough. The criminals were convincingly hardcore and menacing. But this great start slowly began to dismantle as the movie progressed. Eventually it's edge and credibility was lost and it became for me just another farcical zombie movie. What went wrong? --A lot of things for me; some subtle and not easy to articulate. It seems to me that the decline began when the cops and the criminals decided to join forces. Perhaps because, at this point, the criminals didn't seem so menacing and in control anymore; no longer hardcore. Just terrified and confused. The dangerousness of them had been transfered to the new threat: the zombies.

Something more concrete is the fact that they kept shooting the zombies in the body or torso when clearly this wasn't working; and this after a successful head shot earlier. If it were you or I, we would have figured this out; concentrated our shots to the head. But the people in this movie never came to this elementary deduction. So credibility was lost because no one is that stupid. My guess is that the director and the writer didn't want the zombies killed too quickly; more suspenseful if they kept coming at you. How to do this? Let the people in the movie avoid head shots and common sense.

Another thing that bothered me was the introduction of this bloated, cartoonish, old fart who kept referring to the zombies as "chinks". As well, there was a scene wherein one guy took on a swarm of zombies all by himself. I did not at all find that credible. None of the zombies got even a nibble for some time. And mind you, these aren't the slow, leg-dragging, zombies of old. These are the newer, more ferocious ones that run as good as you and me.

Lastly, the advent of the zombies wasn't explained at all. In no time at all zombies were all over the place and humans were extinct or near-extinction. How could the world make such a sea-change in such a short span of time? What happened? Was there radiation from a nuclear explosion? Was there a virus? What the hell happened??? Notwithstanding all I've said so far, the movie has entertainment value. Just disappointed it turned into just another zombie movie as it progressed.

I seem to have a little time so I'll answer some of the questions of my zillions of adoring readers.

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Love, Boloxxxi.

A crew of cops and gangsters fight their way through a zombie apocalypse while interacting warily and sometimes violently with each other.

This is one of the best zombie movies I've seen in a while, it's surprising that I hadn't heard of it before. The zombies are the usual Romero type, although they do run instead of lurch at times. The usual zombie rules apply; shoot it in the head, and all that. The difference here is that several of the living engage in fist fights with zombies when a gun isn't handy, you don't see that very much. The fights tend to be quick, realistic and brutal. That was interesting.

The tension between cops and gangsters goes on until the very end, adding a bit of a twist to the plot. The acting is good, the production values high, and the special effects are good and gory. This isn't the backyard zombie movie your brother-in-law Cletus made with his camcorder and five drunken friends; it's a decently budgeted, well acted and somewhat original zombie movie with atmosphere.

I recommend this film to any zombie flick fan. It's in French, but there isn't that much dialog so the subtitles aren't obtrusive.

Despite a plethora of zombie films being made around the world in the last ten years, very few of them are actually any good; I think the last one I really enjoyed was the Spanish REC. Good news, then, that the French have finally done themselves proud with THE HORDE, which turns out to be one of the most exciting - and desperate - zombie films of the last few years.

Don't go here looking for originality, because you won't find it. THE HORDE's storyline is nothing to write home about, and the cast is typical for those of us familiar with French cinema like DISTRICT 13. In essence, a group of gangsters, cops and eccentrics are cooped up in a run-down apartment block and forced to fend off the frenzied attacks of the living dead.

The characters are all hard-ass and the script is littered with tough-as-nails dialogue, but along the way there are some genuinely decent performances, particularly from Jean-Pierre Martins and Eriq Ebouaney, whose initial hostility gradually gives way to a grudging respect. But the characters come second to the direction, which is all about tense, close-quarters combat, and the film-makers don't skimp on the bloodshed either. This is a nasty movie, in which the zombies are vicious man-eaters all the way. There's even time for something new, in the form of some breathtaking hand-to-hand combat battles between humans and zombies which are like something out of THE RAID and just as great to watch. THE HORDE is a great little movie and one I'll enjoy rewatching in future.

I have watched this film moments after seeing a low budget German zombie flick and so I could see the differences between the two immediately. While Rammbock was low budget, this one had lots of weapons and effects and plenty of gore; La Horde had superviolent gangsters and cops (the French kind, a la Luc Besson), the other one had painfully average people; the Germans had natural reactions, while the French were complete idiots; German film had believability while La Horde was ridiculous just when starting to like it. And so on and so on...

Bottom line: La Horde had the ingredients for a great movie. I was expecting (maybe that was my problem) a combination between From Dusk Till Dawn and Nid de Guêpes. It was neither, as the characters wasted bullet after precious bullet shooting zombies in the body (even if they noticed the only effective shots where legs and head) or shouting in anger and/or fear. And the thing is, in France, old men and young women are a lot scarier than zombies. Eriq Ebouaney was the highlight of the movie, but mainly because of his almighty blackness and acting, not his script lines.

A gorefest zombie film, pure and simple. Violent, bloody but don't expect any acting masterclasses. Sit back and enjoy the carnage.

An uneasy alliance develops between hardened criminals and the policemen raiding their apartment block as a zombie plague wages outside in this French take on the horror subgenre. While hardly exploring new or original territory, the film has some memorable touches, most notably as the group torment a female zombie pinned to the ground and talk about gang banging her, highlighting just monstrous non-zombies can be. There is also a well done bit in which one man plows into a crowd of zombies as if he is playing rugby. For the most part though, 'La Horde' never reaches its potential. There are a lot of zombie attacks, but they occur so quickly with rapid fire editing that there is no chance to bask in the madness of bodies ripped apart. The macho characters get on the nerves quite quickly too with the film soon becoming less about cops and criminals united together and more about tough men competing to show off how tough they are. There is one prominent female character, however, she is so bitter and twisted that she remains hard to warm too throughout and her actions in the film final's scene leave a sour taste in the mouth. Fortunately, the film focuses largely on Yves Pignot, who brings much comic relief as a war veteran relishing in the chance to use his army training again to fend off the zombie plague, but this is still hard a film to recommend without reservations.

I found this movie by accident and I'm glad I did. It's definitely in the newer way of thinking when it comes to zombie films. If you like the older zombie originals you may not like this film. But if you liked the remake of Dawn of the Dead then you will like this. The film takes off fairly quick and once it starts it doesn't stop. Plus it has a nice mix of dark humor mixed in and some really cool visuals. The characters aren't really that believable to me but with a film like this who gives a crap? It's entertaining if you're into horror films and you like blood and gore, it doesn't disappoint. I would watch this with friends again or by myself if I had nothing better to do.

It's an action zombie film which has a lot of gore and shooting. But it kinda loses its impact after a little while and get a bit repetitive. There's a plot which doesn't really have much of an immersiveness.

Bunch of cops go after a mob to get revenge for friend, while there's a zombie apocalypse cooking up outside.

La Horde is probably the best action film of the year. It doesn't work as an out and out horror but it is a balls out insane action film. The plot in cops and criminals join forces in a tower block as the End of Days happens and the dead return as bloodthirsty aggressive zombies. If you like action brutal, bloody and violent then see this. The plot isn't anything original but this film has verve by the bucketload. The scares are good and the tension is slowly built higher and higher. The only complaint is that the ending isn't clever despite being different.

Go see it if you love robocop/28 days later/dawn of the dead.

Great fun.

After numerous releases of Zombie movies that have reached the screen since the successful remake of Dawn of the Dead, it was an enjoyment to view something that finally reached the level of "Worth while watching". No, La Horde delivers nothing new to the genre itself; however, the idea of making a Zombie horror in conjunction with an action driven thriller makes it even more entertaining. This time, even the Zombie characters gives the audience a fright, a trait that viewers have not been too spoiled with in recent years. The same goes to the actors' performance where the role characters are portrayed in a convincing manner, which all together is well above the standard of any peer Zombie movie. It is definitely a recommendation to any fan of this genre that has not been fulfilled since the launching of that remake that was mentioned in the beginning

The Horde aka La Horde is not a bad zombie movie but also not a really good one: the movie is heavy on the shooting and fighting side, and we get some blood, gore and brutality served, plus some (a lot) fast running high octane zombies, but what I mostly missed is a sense of horror or zombie-induced apocalyptic feel of terror: Mutants and The Nights Eats the World are regarding suspense far stronger (and more serious) French entries to the genre, that's at least my opinion. I guess, the weakest part are our heroes, I did not relate to any of them, so I watched the whole affair rather indifferently, regarding who gets killed and who not. Also I missed (like in many zombie movies) some originality and the setting of some cops and criminals fighting zombies together is also, well, not really an eureka moment of script writing. Not to forget, that many action sequences were so unrealistic and comic-like, so every illusion of watching something "real" happening got destroyed. You remember the episodes of The Walking Dead where Rick's group cleaned out the prison from all those zombies? Those episodes simply play in another league: action- and suspense-wise. Anyway, The Horde got some production value and the technical aspects are alright for a B-movie. The Horde - recommended, if you need some fresh fodder with fast running zombies a la 28 Days Later and the like.