REVIEW: The Horde

Where were you when the apocalypse started? Perhaps you were a doctor working in the ER. A college student heading to class. Or maybe you were a rogue cop leading an unsanctioned bust of a violent street gang housed in an abandoned apartment building. (If it’s that last one, then that would make you a character in The Horde). The point is that you can’t plan for the apocalypse. One minute you’re living your life. The next minute you’re fighting off a reanimated corpse that’s trying to eat your flesh.

The opening moments of The Horde are similar to From Dusk Til Dawn. If you didn’t know better going in, you could think you were watching a straight-up action flick where the bad guys are bad and the good guys are even worse. Then suddenly, a murder victim is back on his feet and it’s go time for zombies. You, along with the characters, have just entered a completely different movie than the one you started out in.

It doesn’t take long for the heroes and villains to realize that the rules have changed. They reluctantly decide to work together to evade the zombies and escape the apartment building. Along the way, blood is spilled, loyalties are tested, and the line between good and evil becomes irrevocably blurred. This is what is truly striking about The Horde. It feeds you the action movie violence and the zombie movie gore and never takes its foot off the gas pedal. Yet at the same time, it’s subtly revealing layers to its characters that most films like this wouldn’t bother with. In this movie, as in life, not everyone is purely good or purely evil. A man you wrote off as a murdering thug can also be honor-bound and deeply loyal to those he cares about. Someone who began their mission with the noble intention of delivering justice may become so consumed by vengeance that they may fail to see another’s redemption. If you think that all sounds a little too heavy, the film does supply some much needed comic relief in the form of Rene, a pot-bellied old war veteran who finally has a reason to live again now that he can freely blow up some zombies. That guy is a scene-stealing hoot.

Truly great films transcend their genre and become just flat-out great movies. I watched The Horde with my cousin, who has nothing against zombies but simply doesn’t share my passion for them. When it was over and we were leaving the theater, he was chattering just as excitedly as I was. The Horde is an instant classic in the zombie genre, but better than that, it’s a fantastic movie. Get over your hatred of subtitles. Don’t pre-judge a movie because it was made in France. If you are a zombie fanatic, you owe it to yourself to check out The Horde. (At the very least, you can impress that girl you like by telling her you’re in to foreign films!)

Available at Amazon