At this funeral, Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins) goes over to the widow and gives her the reassurance that he will avenge the death of her husband tonight, and so it is that in the evening he assembles his gang and they congregate at a crumbling tower block in one of the poorest areas of Paris. But this collection of gun-wielding toughs are not any old gangsters, no, they are cops out to get their own back on Ade (Eriq Ebouaney), who runs his own gang from this building, and have kidnapped one of their officers. However, there's one thing that Ouessem and his three cohorts did not count on...
Well, quite a few things, actually, they being the horde of the title that are gathering in the night outside, and across the city. It was zombie movie time again, except this had the twist of being a French zombie movie, which meant in among the mayhem there was room for a few moments of poetry before the violence resumed. And make no mistake, this was absurdly violent, except that debuting directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher liked to build on character too, which may or may not have been out of place here, especially as some cast members got to display more personality than others.
Martins is the nominal hero, but we find out almost nothing about him over the course of the story, and if it were not for what happens in the last fifteen minutes you'd have trouble remembering that he was in this at all. The female lead, cop Aurore (Claude Perron), is little better, there to avenge the death of the flic who was the father of her unborn child, but aside from a pinched expression and a ruthless demeanour does not bring much to the table, and may leave you feeling irritated by what goes on at the climax. Actually, the character the directors appeared most enamoured with was Ade.
Ebouaney rewards their faith in him by putting in the strongest performance, starting out as any old thug with a gun and finding that being besieged with the undead can be a character-building experience. Although Ouessem's team do make it up the stairs to the apartment where Ade and company are hiding out, it does not go too well for them with one of their number drastically wounded and the rest lined up against the wall. What saves their bacon, ironically, is when the hostage, now shot dead, returns to life and starts trying to eat anyone he can get his teeth into: Ade puts a stop to that by blowing his head off with a shotgun, something that unwittingly points out another problem with the film.
Shoot 'em in the head! This is one of those zombie movies where the survivors cannot work out that a bullet to the brain is ideal for halting the reanimated cadavers in their tracks, so can produce an adverse reaction in the seasoned zombie fan. However, such is the bloodlust in The Horde that when it does get gory, you can ignore the film's issues and get caught up in the plentiful action. As with the George A. Romero works it seeks to emulate, the low budget can work in its favour, claustrophobically speaking, as the succession of dingy corridors and flats truly give the sense of being trapped as the zombies congregate outside and start to find a way in. Spice is added by Jo Prestia as one of the gangsters who tackles the corpses with his fists and feet, and Yves Pignot as a crazed pensioner who ends up brandishing a huge machine gun. This isn't much you haven't seen before, but its theme of the world going to hell in a handbasket is an apt one for this style of horror. Music by Christopher Lennertz.
