Yannick Dahan/Benjamin Rocher
La Horde

A feature film with its historical significance: "La Horde" (2010) is the first "zombie" themed film made in France, based on standard Romero principles. Namely, the classic horde of walking dead against humanity in panic. Set on the outskirts of Paris, the weak plot revolves around the forced collaboration of a handful of survivors, divided between criminals and policemen, fighting against the horror of undead cannibals. The setting/prison of the story is an immense suburban building, a decaying and semi-abandoned structure, formerly a refuge for drug dealers and various criminals.

One can start with the sore spot: the screenplay, often, unfolds with clichés and implausible lines, despite some unexpected flair (the "treatment" of the infected leg scene has dark humor), although almost always the dialogues lack bite. The narration touches on different possible developments without delving into any; each character is sketched with brief phrases or vague suggestions, like the criminal brothers who escaped from their native Nigeria, the old mad veteran, and the protagonist determined only to save the child she carries in her womb.

The real strength, and indeed fully successful, aspect of the work is the sense of claustrophobia inside the building, coupled with an intentional vagueness of the rest of the world (only an apocalyptic Parisian suburb glimpsed): all this is well supported by a very dark cinematography, played entirely on gray tones and the dark red of blood. A certain precariousness hovers over the proposed hour and a half: the goal is to get out of the building, but then what? The city is under siege by the corpses (rightly, without this wave of death having a reason). Moreover, the survivors must collaborate to survive, but initially, they were on the verge of killing each other. An ending with little hope and notable brutality.

The container is worth much more than the content, (intentionally?) thin, but, for this writer, the product turns out to be much more enjoyable and interesting than a tired work like Romero's "Land Of The Dead" from a few years earlier, thanks to moderately agile editing and not excessively violent scenes (as could have been expected).