THE HOARD

Not sure what’s going with the French these days….In the last few years, I’ve seen several great French horror films….INSIDE and MARTYRS which I’ve blogged about before were ferocious masterpieces….I’ve also seen FRONTIERES and SHAITAN which are well made thrillers.

THE HOARD (or LA HOARDE) is the French’s contribution to the zombie film….That is the George A Romero vision of a zombie apocalypse….What makes this film even better is a back story that is interesting and more than the usual compendium of clichés.

In THE HOARD, a group of police and group of criminals they are in the process of raiding located in the top floors of one of those gigantic housing projects find themselves forced to join together when a zombie apocalypse breaks out in the world outside.

This film is non-stop action….Very tense….The first appearance of a zombie which in this case is someone who was shot to death earlier and is in the back bedroom of the apartment where cops and criminals are gathered is fantastic.

As far as zombie mythology goes, the undead here are like a cross between 28 DAYS LATER (with red eyes) and the faster models of the re-make of THE DAWN OF THE DEAD.

I would also say that horror movies are not known for character development but some of the characters in this films are very interesting (the hardcore female heroine, the basically good head of the police team, the charismatic chief criminal, the elderly Dien Bien Phu veteran)

Gore is also more left for the imagination here….It never goes overboard….France continues on its winning streak with horror movies