I'm not here to spark age old debates. I think we've all had enough of them. You haven't? Me either, but I'm not going to get into it again (but you can read someone else's zombie thoughts if you like). Just to acknowledge the fact: yes, The Horde features fast zombies and no, I'm not OK with that. So what else does The Horde have for us?
I am a huge fan of the idea that starts off The Horde that there is a narrative completely unrelated to the zombie genre (or horror at all) that gets disrupted by the outside undead force. I almost wish that I could experience a movie in which I didn't know it was a zombie movie until the first zombies showed up 20 minutes in. Can you imagine watching a heist movie where the crew has spent the entire movie planning the heist to the most minute detail only to have zombies screw everything up just as they crack the safe? It sounds amazing! So The Horde had a lot of good will early even in spite of the fact that the hints of the imminent zombie invasion pointed to fast zombies. There are a group of cops who are going to rescue a colleague/friend from the people who killed another one of their own. Opposing sides meet. Some people get killed. Zombies show up.
The plot isn't unlike John Carpenter's Assault on Precinct 13. The two sides must try to put aside their differences if they hope to survive. Through the first 30 minutes, I was totally on board. I loved the set up, had no idea where the movie was going, the movie was looking good, and I totally dug that the zombie menace was unexplained and that the recently killed were rising even though they weren't infected (something that I feel gets lost in some other zombie movies). Then the first zombie attack happens. It's like the directors, Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher, totally lost confidence in their abilities. It looks like they removed frames to make the action quicker and jerky but it looks terrible. Any time something exciting happens, this aesthetic returns to the point where I actively starting disliking the movie. I want my zombie carnage smooth, dammit!
Then there are the characters... I mostly like the lead criminal, Adewale (Eriq Ebouaney), and the lead cop, Ouessem (Jean-Pierre Martins). Actually, the criminals in general get on my nerves the least, but that's not to say I like them. But the female cop, Aurore (Claude Perron) is totally ridiculous. She's just there to be angry and contrary. And being basically the only female in the movie, she has to be pregnant (but not too pregnant so she's still super-thin). I get what they were trying to do, but I don't understand why she's only looking out for herself. The comic relief from Rene (Yves Pignot) starts as mildly amusing and becomes tiresome. Maybe you don't want likable characters in your zombie movie because inevitably, everyone is going to die (or if there is a hopeful ending, the zombie threat is rarely eradicated). Yeah. I don't buy that either.
By the time The Horde is ramping up to the climax, it's just an endless stream of people doing stupid things. A grenade is ignored, people struggle to close a door that zombies are blocking but don't think to shoot at them, unnecessary sacrifices are made, and NO ONE FIGURES OUT THAT HEAD SHOTS KILL THE ZOMBIES EVEN THOUGH THEY'VE ALREADY DETERMINED THAT THAT WORKS. Seriously. They don't even try to aim for the head in most cases. It's so aggravating to watch.
When I was still enjoying The Horde, I was going to talk about the themes running through it and examine if there was any commentary on violence or crime. Instead, I got angry. I thought the film was going to blow me away, fast zombies and everything, but it's a shit sandwich.
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