This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

I thought this was a pretty good zombie flick where the filmmakers tried their best, in the time allowed, to develop their "heroes" as best and as quickly as they possibly could. There was lots of tension, lots of drama, and bucket loads of blood strewn about like cherry blossom petals in a rainstorm.The only aggravating bits to me were that all the tough guys whimpered like three year old girls on their first sight of blood. I'm exaggerating, but I think you know what I mean. If you're going to be, then man up and be tough, dammit! Other than that I thought it was an enjoyable flick and worth watching.

On the positive side, it is as others have described as a fast paced survival of uncommon allies against an unending wave of zombies. The zombies kick in fairly quickly, throwing opposing parties in together to make it through, which leads to an immense amount of blood, splatter, gunfire, a few knife fights, and general hectic mayhem. So the positive....blood, and lots of it.On the negative side, where to begin? We can piece together why the group of cops are going after the gang of bad guys, mostly. But when the zombies kick in, we have no explanations of why or how, it just is. As the actors put it, it is "Judgement Day", as the city in the distance is on fire and the building they are in is apparently blown up in sections such as the stairwell. During the escape they unite with an old war vet who explains he blew some parts of the building up to block the zombies...okay, partial credit for an answer, still doesn't explain the city afire or other partially destroyed buildings. It's not like the zombies are driving tanks and fighter jets. So, I'll step away from the zombie logic plot holes galore and turn to the characters. We have some (bad/dirty?) cops going after the criminals who killed one of the cops, simple enough vengeance motivation. Then as we move along we find the female cop is pregnant (necessary for French zombie films, I believe). As all parties race for survival, persons throw away allegiance to their original friends, sometimes support the other guys sometimes flare up to confront them (to remind us this is only about survival, not that old differences are forgotten). But ultimately, I couldn't find myself caring about any of them - not even the pregnant one. People throw their lives away for no reason, keep others alive that should be killed (remember, zombie bite are ALWAYS deadly), and in the end you wonder if anyone will survive....but you wonder more if you really care at all.I'll give them quality points for the gore, but that is ALL they got right in making this a watchable movie. If that's all you are after, go for it. If you want anything that makes sense, has a back story or characters you might care about, or if you like for things to wrap up in a way that makes any kind of sense....skip it.

If you've seen the British zombie film '28 Weeks Later' you'll probably know what I mean by the title. Basically, 'The Horde' is Frances answer to Britain's 28 Days Later franchise. It's almost as if it's set in the same world (and possibly the same world where Germany's 'Siege of the Dead' and America's 2004 remake of 'Dawn of the Dead' is set).If you've seen any of the above films, you'll probably know what to expect - running zombies (no 'Romero shufflers' here!) and shaky camera-work, depicting a dark, violent and gritty take on zombie lore. Here we meet a quartet of Parisian police officers who are taking the law into their own hands by storming a run-down tower block in order to execute some drug dealers who murdered a colleague of theirs. Sadly, all does not go according to plan, as the night they pick to exact their retribution, the undead start their rise from the grave. We never find out the cause of the outbreak, only witness the effects, as the cops and 'robbers' have to band together to survive.It's a pretty claustrophobic atmosphere we have here. 99% of the entire film is set within the dilapidated tower block. It's violent, it's nasty and it's effectively 28 Weeks Later - the Aftermath.If you haven't had your fill of zombie movies (and can put up with the French subtitles - also, I've watched it dubbed and that's not so bad either) then give this one a go - it's pretty good.http://thewrongtreemoviereviews.blogspot.co.uk/

The Horde plays as an action movie, and it's not a bad one. Dahan and Rocher make their run-down setting an integral part of the action; it dictates what the cops and crooks can do without ever feeling arbitrary. The balance of power shifts often enough to keep the audience guessing a little. Both shootouts and hand-to-hand combat are well-choreographed and bloody, which is actually pretty impressive - there really aren't that many zombie movies that make a fight between the living and the undead work, especially when the protagonists don't have much in the way of firearms and large blades at their disposal (it helps that the infected in this movie are on the fast side).Prostheses and gore are pretty good, although the lighting sometimes hides just how good. Some of the digital effects aren't quite as good as they could be, perhaps - though the movie is mostly practical effects, there's always something not quite right about the smoke in the background.7/10