"Dawn of the Dead meets Assault on Precinct 13, but not as good"

When I started life as a film critic I used to dread foreign films - in all honesty I was a bit of a philistine.  Simply put, I couldn't deal with the fact that not only did I have to spend 90 minutes concentrating on what was happening on screen, I also had to spend 90 minutes reading continuously if I wanted to have any idea about what was going on - it just seemed too much like hard work for my liking.

It's rare that I'll ever admit this, let alone in public, but I was wrong.  Some of the most gratifying cinematic experiences I've had over the last two and a half years have come from foreign subtitled films.  Unlike the overly publicised American blockbusters that rear their heads every year, the independent foreign films tend to sneak up on you, and as such it's possible to view them without having any preconceptions whatsoever - everyone involved tends to be an unknown quantity.

This is exactly the case with The Horde.  With a paltry budget of 2 million Euros (probably about enough to hire Tom Cruises leg and a camera which would most likely not be a film worth watching if I'm honest), directors Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher present France's first ever zombie film - the question is, is it actually any good?  Unfortunately, I'm going to have to say no.  The concept is a fresh twist on the zombie genre - I suppose the best way to describe it is almost as a 'zombie heist movie'.  However this originality is not enough - it has neither the scare factor of a zombie film, nor the suspense element you would anticipate from the heist genre.

It's not all doom and gloom however.  Despite the lacking in other areas, I did enjoy the performances of the ensemble cast.  The good guys/bad guys/worse guys dynamic (in this instance police/criminals/zombies) is well orchestrated, with the bad guys and good guys changing positions at regular intervals.  It's a stark reminder that by limiting ourselves to the aforementioned blockbusters, we miss out on a wealth of foreign talent.

Overall, it's a nice idea, but just not executed well enough.  Expect an American version soon.