THE HORDE (France) ALLIANCE
Ah, France: where blood runs in the streets like red
wine and the Eiffel Tower burns through the night. That’s because in Yannick Dahan and Benjamin Rocher’s The Horde, it’s ground zero of a zombie apocalypse. When some rogue cops visit a rundown apartment to get pay- back on drug dealers for killing one of their own, they get caught – first by the gangsters, then in the middle of an undead uprising. Now, dirty cops and dapper gang- sters must set aside their differences and work together to fight their way out of the infested building – with the help of a crusty,
COLIN (UK) MONGREL MEDIA
Next stop, Jolly Ol’ England, where
rigor mortis stiffens the upper lip and brains go great with crumpets. Writer/director/producer Marc Price made international headlines when his $75 zombie movie, Colin, became a hot topic on the festival circuit. While it’s cer- tainly bigger and better than you’d think possi-
ble at that bottom line, and it’s nicely edited, the limitations of under-lit consumer video are always ap- parent.
old, trigger-happy war veteran – be- cause with most of Paris infected, it’s a small world after all for the living. Executive produced and narrated
by Xavier Gens (director of Frontier(s)), The Horde is music video slick, frighten- ingly claustrophobic at points and boasts some action-packed fights, but is essentially your standard un- dead flick. None of the deplorable characters are worth car- ing about, the old guy comic relief is awkward and there’s a truly ugly streak of misogyny running through the film (e.g. the female lead is mostly referred to as “bitch”). This
one’s not worth the ride. The big twist is that it’s all from the perspective of Colin,
a young British man in the middle of an undead outbreak who turns into a Romero-style zombie shortly after the opening credits. We then watch him shamble through town as rotting hordes overtake a house, a woman is ab- ducted and thrown in a zombie-filled basement, and armed vigilantes clear the streets. His back story unfolds as he winds up at his family home and, eventually, his for- mer girlfriend’s flat. By the time you learn about his last few hours with a pulse, you’ll just wanna give the sensitive little cannibal a hug (mmm, better not...). Despite too many forced transcendent moments, re- spect for Price’s original approach. Rotting or not, we all
just want to find our place in the world.
AAAH! ZOMBIES (USA) MVD VISUAL
Last but not least, some zombie mayhem in America,
where skulls crack like Liberty Bells and there’s fresh Adam’s apple pie on the windowsill. This time the mili- tary’s behind the outbreak; while attempting a super-sol- dier formula, army scientists accidentally invent a zombie toxin, which then spills off a truck and winds up in the soft-serve machine at a bowling alley, where four friends eat it and become undead. A shot-on-video low-budget horror-comedy, Matthew
Kohnen’s Aaah! Zombies uses a sort-of zombievision gimmick, in which the infected look normal to each other but like walking corpses to everyone else. A rogue military man helps them
embrace their new life – er, death-style, which includes super strength, flesh cravings and the loss of body parts. Add a military conspiracy, brain-eating jokes and a zom- bies-vs-humans brawl on league night. Aaah! Zombies strives for Kevin
Smith territory, meaning broad char- acter types (the nerd, jerky best friend, etc.), a lovesick hero and some stilted dialogue, but the effects are cheap and the gags hit and miss. For- givable if not for the tasteless race jokes (a bar named
“Chinky’s” because a “Chinaman” owns it – ugh!). FYI: skin colour doesn’t matter when it rots off...
RM42
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