ZomBlog Review: "The Horde"

“The Horde”

2009

France

Stars: Claude Perron, Jean-Pierre Martins, Eriq Ebouaney, Yves Pignot, Doudou Masta, Jo Prestia, Antoine Oppenheim, Aurelien Recoing,

Writers: Arnaud Bordas, Yannick Dahan, Stephane Moissakis, Benjamin Rocher

Dir: Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher

97 minutes

Stop right now. Go to Netflix or any other movie site you frequent for streaming/renting films. Watch “The Horde.” Then, come back here and thank me.

Since “28 Days Later,” I really had not been so excited to review a zombie film. Sure, there have been several fine entries since “28 Days,” but they have been few and far between.

Then I discovered, by accident, this film.

“The Horde” delivers on such an epic level, so feel free to accuse me of gushing over it.

The story is so basic that anyone with any moderate level of cinema knowledge will instantly scream that this film is “Assault on Precinct 13” … WITH ZOMBIES!

Screw those rubes. This film is far deeper than that. It is a refreshing take on a very, very tired genre. I admit, I slogged away at this blog, as did my counterpart, just looking for a moment of ingenuity, and we came up lacking for the most part.

So, in the past few months, I found myself looking to “resurrect” the zombie blog. I have recruited a great level of talent in this endeavor, of which you will see very soon. And while my love of the undead has not waned, I needed such a film as this to kick me in the ass. And kick ass it did. In spades.

“The Horde” follows a group of four police officers, hell-bent on exacting revenge on a drug dealer, who is holed-up in an abandoned apartment high-rise. A member of their team was killed, and they want to make the Nigerian dealer and his gang pay with their lives. They launch an assault on the apartment building, and it goes horrifically wrong. Facing execution by said drug-dealer, a once-thought dead informant bursts forth from an apartment bathroom, taking out several of the drug dealers stooges, all the while a horde of the undead besiege the ground floor of the apartment building below.

As both the cops and the felons make their way to the roof, they discover all of France is burning, in what I can only describe as a purposeful use of CGI. The film was fairly low-budget, so, incorporating an apocalyptic vision of France exploding had to use a fair amount of CGI. In this case, it is very effective. I got chills seeing an entire city nearly decimated as the protagonists of this tale simply gazed in awe as to what was happening, without them knowing what was occurring. A few called it judgment day. Maybe it was. The beauty of this film is that, (SPOILER) you just don’t know. I like not being spoon-fed.

In order to make it out of the decrepit apartment, felons and policemen are forced to work together to make it down nearly 14 stories of undead, raging munchers.

It’s an uneasy alliance for sure, and many a plot point is made to ensure these people hate each other.

I suddenly realized I’ve gone far too long without giving you any description or make out of the characters, which, indeed, make this film work. Oussem (Martins) originally suggests the alliance on behalf of the outnumbered and outgunned police; Adewale Markudi (Eriq Abouaney, the second real star of this flick), the dealer, uneasily accepts, much to the protests of his violent and mistrusting brother, Bola (Masta). Add in Aurore (Perron, who has the intensity, bravado, and acting chops to shadow a young Sigourney Weaver circa “Alien,” which makes her the bona fide star here), Markudi’s other bodyguard Jo Prestia (who, in one scene, secures his vote for me as a guy I want to be fighting on my side come the zombie apocalypse), and Vietnam vet Rene (who comes across as a military man far too happy to have another chance to slay people, hence his accusations that the undead are “chinks,” and, once bitten, you become “a chink;” I’ve never been an advocate of blatant racism, but I laughed heartily once he came into play; and I don’t feel guilty for it).

Stunning action scenes (zombie beatdowns the likes I have never seen), fast-pacing, attention to character development, and just the right amount of attention to what we, as zombie fans want, makes “The Horde” stand out as a modern classic of the zombie lore. I loved this movie. I wish there were many more like it.

Romero Rules Followed: Get bitten, turn. As an added bonus, this one incorporated the “recently dead” just return from death due to some unknown force, so that is nearly 100 percent.

Gore factor: Very, very gory. And all warranted. What else can you expect from a movie that features a scene of one person against horde of zombies in a parking garage? (I got the biggest goosebumps ever with a single camera shot during that scene. That is how epic it is).

Zombies or Wannabees? Zombies

Classic, fine, or waste of time: Classic

Additional comments: I have read some of the reviews on Netflix regarding this fine, fine flick. To those assholes who want to continue to argue the running/shambling debate, get the fuck over it. Your ADBD (attention deficit brain disorder) caused it. If I can get over it, you can. Also, stop your bitching about subtitles. Do you think only good movies get made in America? Look at Hollywood’s track record of remakes/reimaginings over the past 20 years.

So, yeah, ingenuity lies across the pond. Deal.

— ROB

Like a Virgin, Haunted for the Very First Time

A Virgin Among the Living Dead
1973
Dir. Jesus Franco
Title 15, Chapter 2, Subchapter 1, Section 52 of the U.S. Code expressly prohibits businesses from engaging in deceptive or false advertising. Though I think the statute of limitations is probably a little long in the tooth to be throwing the book at Jesus Franco for French stinker A Virgin Among the Living Dead (aka Christine, Princess of Eroticism), which, title aside, features nary a zombie (and just as little eroticism). A few restrained hints of possible lesbian vampirism and one thoroughly useless ghost are the closest you’re going to come to “living dead” in this 75 minute assault on your higher thinking functions.
Hell, given our babbling protagonist’s hobbies include sleeping nude, skinny dipping and parading around in front of strangers in her sheer panties, I’m just gonna go ahead and call bullshit on that “virgin” thing as well. Aspersions aside, Christine, the titular virgin, is a naïf just blown into some rundown French town to hear the reading of the will of a father she never knew. Showing up the family chateau, which every villager assures her has been vacant for generations, Christine stumbles wide-eyed (and usually nude) through encounters with the various, irritating denizens of the house who act less like the Addamses and more like John Waters rejects. Weird Uncle Howard just bangs away at the organ, blind Linda compulsively paints crosses in blood and offers cryptic warnings while the family’s mute manservant just leers around pervertedly. How does Christina react? She just nods and smiles at every violations of mores that any other rational person would take as signs to move into the nearest Motel 6. Things get creepy, dead animals get placed in her bed and the family eventually tries to get all Rosemary’s Baby on Christina. It’s painfully by the numbers and horrifically zombie-free.

Zombology: Not a goddamned thing. Zilch. Nada. Bupkis. The zombie is a lie. While Christine wanders aimlessly on a scene of lesbian vampirism (which she seems to just disregard the next time she runs across the participants) and her ghostly, blood dribbling father makes an ineffectual stab and warning her off, there is no “living dead” to be had. Zippo.

Like a lot of Jesus Franco films, A Virgin Among the Living Dead features startlingly amateur cinematography at times – particularly during the halting zooms and pull backs – mixed with tableaux that suggest Franco may have had a glimmer of talent in his otherwise hackish repertoire. But more importantly, NO FUCKING ZOMBIES.
This suckfest proudly earned its perfect score on the Hell of the Living Dead scale of hellacious awfulness.

The Nazi Braaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiiiiiiiiiiiiiiin Trust

Nazis and zombies are like the peanut butter and chocolate of horrordom: two great tastes that commit brain eating global atrocities together.
Up until underachieving artist and all around douchebag Adolf threw his little shitfit that sent most of the Western hemisphere into several years of internecine warfare and staggering humanitarian atrocities, the go-to no-goodnik for your low budget horror fromage fest was the castle dwelling mad scientist. But crazy Herr Doktor von Fartknocker up in the local chalet with the lightning fetish and interesting collection of sketchily sourced used body parts seemed a lot less ominous after a bunch of jackbooted, Hugo Boss-suited real life supervillains damn near took over a sizeable chunk of the globe for their own private Latveria.
And so a horror cliché was born.
In its honor, I humbly present you with a cross-media six pack of Nazi zombie goodness (for lesser values of “good”).

Shockwaves
Dir. Ken Wiederhorn
1977
Genetically engineered aquatic Nazi zombie monstrosities—Der Toten Korps—have been lounging off the coast of some unidentified Caribbean island, having apparently missed the telegram announcing that whole Third Reich thing has been put on temporary hiatus after Der Fuhrer exited stage left. The zombies, “neither dead or alive, but somewhere in between,” so we’re told, can apparently be killed upon contact with sunlight by removing their goggles in the worst. villain. weakness. evAR. But soggy stormtroopers take a back seat in the horror department to the thoroughly swizzled acting of John Carradine as an incompetent boat captain who can’t die soon enough and a slumming Peter Cushing as a stranded SS officer gone feral, sleepwalking through a film he’s got to know is beneath him, even by his own pre-Star Wars career revival standards.

Oasis of the Zombies
Dir. Jesus Franco
1981
Notorious softcore purveyor and all around shlockmeister Jesus Franco uncharacteristically turned down the boobs in this 1981 tale of incompetent treasure hunters on the trail of a pile of Nazi bullion in the African desert that is still being watched over by zombified Afrikacorps troops. Mangled by multiple cuts, the plot seems to have gone the way of the porn as hunters with no discernable motives double cross one another pointlessly (and with an alarming shortage of brain-chomping action) until only a pack of hormonal teens is left to set off alone through the desert in search of fortune only to find rotting corpses and interminable swaths of stock footage barring their path.

Zombie Lake
Dir. Jean Rollin
1981
1981 was apparently a boom year in the Nazi Zombie business as French director Jean Rollin spins this tale of Kermit-green Nazi zombies who return from the lake where they were drowned 10(?), 20(?) year ago –the timeline is absolute indecipherable – by French partisans, who now live a peaceful life despite knowing goddamn well a pack of rather peeved Nazi zombies call their lake home and are burbling on the bottom plotting vengeance. Not too many directors would have the nerve to spin the story as something of an undead love story that dares to cast the lead Nazi in a sympathetic light. Bonus points: if you were disturbed by the lack of boobage in Oasis of the Zombies, the scum covered pond is apparently irresistible to women, who feel a compulsion to go skinny dipping – including an entire women’s basketball team – in its murky, Nazi-infested waters. Double bonus: keep a sharp eye on the scene were the town mayor is interviewed by the intrepid lady reporter to watch for the director, cameraman and assorted crewmembers reflected in the giant mirror over the mayor’s shoulder for the entire scene. Quality film making, there.

Dead Snow
Dir. Tommy Wirkola
2009
Following a rather fallow quarter century, Norwegian filmmaker Tommy Wirkola, whose previous credit was a highly panned Kill Bill spoof, drops a splatter comedy bomb about a pack of Eurodouches (it’s so comforting that horror film cannon fodder is equally annoying worldwide) on a spring break trip to a remote ski lodge (horror film mistake #1) where they blow off local creepy guy’s warnings (horror film mistake #2) about a pack of undead Einsatzgruppen who have apparently been camping out for the last six decades or so, just chillin’ and waiting for a chance to go sick ass on an appropriately irritating overprivileged collection of character clichés from central casting. Limbs get severed, guts get chomped and jokes get sprung with greater and lesser degrees of success. Though it clearly aspires to a Shaun of the Dead-style gore/humor balance, Dead Snow falls a tad short. Despite that, it still stands as the best Nazi zombie film to date.

The Illuminatus! Trilogy
Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea
1975
Better known as a collection of groan-worthy puns, Nixon-era paranoia, cosmic fuck scenes, libertarian diatribes that get a pass for being less didactic than Ayn Rand and drugged out conspiracies, Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea’s hippie culture touchstone is less recognized for its contribution to the Nazi zombie cannon. *SPOILERS* After much dubious debating of possibly specious history, the plot hinges on German rockstars the American Medical Association’s plan to “immanentize the eschaton” with an act of mass human sacrifice at a Bavarian concert on the shores of Lake Totenkopft where dead Nazi footsoldiers slumber in zombie oblivion until they can be reanimated to bring on the Fourth Reich on behalf of the all-powerful Illuminati. Counter culture in-joke, drugged out digression or occulted history of the United States, you decide. Ewige blumenkraft!

Call of Duty: World at War
Activision
2008
Sweet Shiva of a solar powered scooter, did the world really need another first person shooter set in World War II? Developers Activision are answering in the affirmative. So take that for what you will. Greeted with generally glowing reviews upon its release in 2008, that particular incarnation of the ongoing series plunked the player down in the mudcaked boots of both an American Marine private and a Red Army soldier as they slogged their way through a succession of historically significant battles of the war. But what caused gamers and the zombie-loving public to flip their shit was a minigame that pitted up to four players in a cooperative death match against unrelenting waves of zombified Nazi monstrosities in the old zombie standby as a band of spunky survivors in a boarded up bunker. The minigame has developed such a following there are entire websites devoted to it.