Herd

You can tell that this is a high concept film that was pitched as a lesbian oriented version of Deliverance meets The Walking Dead.

However, it's less of a thriller...and more of a drama.

Focusing on the main couple, as they are brought into a commune that developed after the outbreak of a zombie apocalypse.

Who find themselves pitted against another, more violent, militarized group.

Sure...there are some zombies present in the film.

But their appearances are few and far between.

And never amount to anything even remotely close to being a herd.

So you can't help but be confounded by the title of the film.

There's also a problem with the onset of the viral outbreak that led to the zombie apocalypse, itself.

As it's never adequately developed or explained.

It's just, all of a sudden...sort of there.

And you never really understand how any of it came to be.

Which you can't help but blame on poor writing.

You plod through it, expecting there is going to be an explosive climax.

But this never really comes to fruition.

At least in the sense of any sort of zombie herd.

So you are left confused about what it was ever supposed to be about.

With an ending that is so stupid...it doesn't help the cause much.

The only thing you can do- in order to make any sense of it- is to assume it's all just a dream.

But it doesn't even play out like that.

Before it's over as inexplicably as it began.

Leaving you to walk away, mostly, unfulfilled.

Confounded about what it was ever supposed to be about in the first place.

In short...it's just not a very good film.

So do yourself a favour and just pass this one by.

2 out of 10.

A zombie movie with no zombies.

An outbreak horror with very little outbreak.

A dangerous trip without a road.

I don't know if this movie is misleading, but it sure is different than whatever one might expect.

I can't say I had any fun with it, especially because I was expecting a horror. Not necessarily gore, blood, torture and bad make-up and effects, but certainly more than this.

Herd is all about a couple's personal drama that just happens to coincide with an outbreak, one that we learn more from the TV inside the movie, than the plot itself.

Anyway, for a soap opera episode, Herd could do alright. But for a zombie movie, really not.

It's bland, plain and annoyingly slow and boring.

One of those movies that make you question why did you press Play.

Cheers!

Hoping to rebuild their fractured relationship, a woman and her girlfriend head off into the countryside for a weekend retreat, but when they come into contact with a zombie virus that affects one of them must turn to an equally-dangerous militia group for safety against the hordes of undead.

Overall, this was somewhat disappointing if still decent enough effort. The main thing with this one is the rather focused use of the zombies here which is what generates nearly all of the positives here. The backstory for why they're out and about is fine enough for this kind of feature, and when given the behavioral adjustments where they seem fine and not that harmful to others unless they're provoked generates the kind of effective creature here even before getting to their impressive design. The overall look of the creatures with their snarling faces and growing pustules makes for a fun time so that the main attack scenes here are highly effective and enjoyable swarming scenes that are full of solid stunt work where they come after others and generate some grisly effects in the interim. While this is all heavily featured in the first half and last third of the film, that's pretty much the majority of the positives to be had here. There are some issues here that lower this one overall. One of the main drawbacks here is the film's seemingly overwhelming amount of stupidity exhibited by the leads which keep this going along. The whole thing offering of the trip as a means of keeping their relationship intact serves as an excuse to keep the secret about the rapidly-spreading infection from her girlfriend away from others due to some narrow-minded commitment to the relationship instead of thinking about the safety of the group around her for no real reason. This is exacerbated by the wholly uninvolved series of bits beforehand where they seem perfectly aware of everything at the start but their strange fascination with the relationship instead puts them into the fray so that they become infected when around others. This causes a wholly unlikable situation to occur here with the leads being very unlikable and not at all that fun to follow throughout here. The other issue here is the film's wholly reliant ability to utilize some of the most egregious and overdone tropes in the genre as a means of trying to tell a story that isn't all that impressive. The characters being part of the gay community is really the only interesting fact of the film, but it's all wiped away by the increasingly unnatural use of the characters going more for a fear-of-man situation that gets played out quite quickly since it's a feature of every zombie effort. Using the idea of man as the more fearsome enemy in the face of zombies invading is tired, cliched, and really grinds the film to a halt with the use of these features which have very little zombie action in favor of draining dialogue scenes reinforcing these factors. That ends up causing the film to be quite disappointingly absent of zombie features at the expense of irritating characters and genre tropes, so it's got some big factors holding it back.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

Herd is one movie where you should definitely pay very close attention to the title. Here, the virus is never seen as the real threat, we are.

Synopsis: When Jamie Miller and her wife, Alex Kanai, try to save their failing marriage by going on a canoe trip in rural Missouri, they find themselves stranded after an accident. Alex breaks her leg during a canoe flip and they must slowly make their way to the nearest small town for help. Upon arriving they find it has been overrun by virus-infected "Heps" and extreme right wing local militias who are battling them. The leader of one of the groups, "Big John Gruber", shuttles them to safety at his bunker where they are welcomed by a seemingly friendly group of locals, but after witnessing personal and gruesome horrors, the women know they must escape. Jamie and Alex now find themselves on the run, caught between the group that saved them, a competing militia, and the growing infected Hep threat.

As other as said, this isn't your "typical zombie film". By that, they mean there are hardly any zombies (better described as "infected") in it.

DEI is so often shoved in our faces, that there's often a Pavlovian eyeroll. I didn't really mind it in this movie. Meh.

Anyway, the acting was so-so. I didn't consider it to be completely amateurish. There really wasn't much in the way of special effects, as there were only a few scenes with the infected.

There was an interesting twist near the end, but I found it odd that the movie didn't bother really delving into it any deeper.

I don't think this deserves a 1, but I kept bouncing between a 4 and a 5. I think it's really a 4.5. I didn't have to pay to watch it, but I'm also not complaining about spending 90 minutes of my time on it, either.