The Horde

Acting isn't horrendous, "storyline" is fairly basic, Sydney Sweeney is cute as hell, and the gore effects are pretty good. All in all a decent slice of splatterpunk.

When I sat down to watch the 2016 movie "The Horde" here in 2024, I was unfamiliar with the movie. And I actually thought it was a zombie movie. Yeah, I hadn't heard about the movie prior to sitting down and watching it here for the first time.

Writer and leading actor Paul Logan put together a rather generic script. It was an odd combination of a traditional young adult in the woods type of movie mixed with elements of deranged hillbilly killers roaming the woods. Sure, it was watchable, but you're not in for anything grand or innovative here. It was, in a lack for a better term, a rather generic hillbilly slasher flick. Writer Paul Logan didn't really bring anything great to the genre, that haven't already been seen in movies such as "The Hills Have Eyes", "Wrong Turn" and the like.

The movie started out pretty nice, but then the balloon sort of deflated and you have to venture more than 30 minutes into the movie before things start to pick up.

There are some familiar faces on the cast list, in bigger and smaller roles, with the likes of Paul Logan, Costas Mandylor, Bill Moseley, Don Wilson, Sydney Sweeney and Vernon Wells. I was initially rather thrilled when I saw Bill Moseley's name on the screen, but unfortunately he only had a minor support role in the movie. The acting in the movie were fair.

Visually then the movie was okay. There were some visceral killing scenes that sort of managed to spruce up an otherwise generic and bland storyline a bit. So thumbs up for that accomplishment.

I have to say that the movie's title, "The Horde", was poorly chosen, as there was no horde in the movie. So it just made absolutely no sense. And it definitely wasn't a zombie movie, which I initially believed it was.

My rating of director Jared Cohn's 2016 movie "The Horde" lands on a five out of ten stars.

By that I mean that Logan has quite the ... pecs! Not sure how old he is, but that body of his ... respect to the man! And by bad Mandylor I'm obviously refering to the moral of his character as in evil. You may have heard of those two, you likely have heard of some other actors who only grace the screen for a small amount of time, like Don Wilson or Bill Moseley. Easy money I assume for them and something to recognize for the viewers who care.

The movie is not really good overall, very predictable, not the best fight choreography and all that. But it also is not the worst thing I've seen (and not just because I just finished watching cats ... that's a different story alltogether) ... not even close. Logan seems to have a signature kick move, it's been a while since I last saw a movie of his. Anyway, if you are into B-movie stuff, you might find something interesting for you. A beautiful location for example all things considered.

No doubt the reason for a brand of whey protein a power drink are thanked in the credits to "The Horde" is because they helped keep its multi-functioning star Paul Logan -- who also wrote, produced and did fight choreography -- shredded and pumped. Logan's big biceps and lean, mean torso are the main attraction of this turkey, and a few more shirtless scenes would have been welcome. There's not much else to look at or appreciate.

Logan plays a SEAL who accompanies his fiancé, the world's worst nature photography teacher at some kind of probably for-profit rip- off college, on an "extra-credit" class camping trip. She has great advice like "try different settings" and "experiment," and inspirational pitches like "there's beauty everywhere." Her remedial students aren't terribly interested in photography and seem barely able to hold a camera -- one could be forgiven for thinking the film's title refers to them instead of the group of inbreds who kill, kidnap and torture them in the woods, until of course the muscular Logan snaps into action. The students are all either one thing -- the spoiled rich kid is just a spoiled rich kid, the horny couple is horny all the time -- or nondescript. Logan the screenwriter hasn't mastered creating characters that are remotely lifelike, even his own is one-dimensional. That's probably why they cast terrible actors -- why waste the money on good actors when you aren't giving them anything to play?

This is a combination trip-to-the-woods horror film and "Rambo"/"Missing in Action" style military action film. I guess we are too far removed from Vietnam for Logan to be re-fighting that war, so instead he picks off mutants of the horde the way Chuck Norris used to pick off Viet-Cong. Unfortunately, the mutants are about as uninteresting and uninspired as the hapless soldiers were, which is a problem for the horror-film part of the story. Costas Mandylor does a good job as the horde's opportunistic ring-leader, and Matthew Willig looks suitably imposing as his main henchman, but isn't given enough to do. Considering how much build-up there is to the fight between Logan and Willig, it is really disappointing that it didn't turn out better. Logan the fight choreographer is fine if not innovative, and Logan the actor is good at action, but director Jared Cohn doesn't have a knack for shooting action sequences in a dynamic way, at least not on this film's obviously limited budget. There is less of a sense of place (it isn't set anywhere specific) or realism than in ultra-low-budget films like "Deadly Prey" (to which this owes a debt). They are about as deep in the woods as your average company picnic, yet somehow this mass of mutants has lived there for decades unnoticed by the people of Topanga, where this was filmed, or the staff of the Burger King that is probably 10 minutes away from the location shoots.

One oddity: Don "The Dragon" Wilson, for my money the least interesting action star of the 1990s, has an entirely pointless cameo. I guess they couldn't get Norris.

After reading the reviews here, I was hesitant to watch this movie. I love slasher movies like Friday the 13th and those kinds of things but some people here really just trashed it.

No, there was not great character development in the entirety of the ~88 minutes this movie ran for. But then again I tuned in for a horror / action movie not to watch The Piano. I didn't want nor expect drama. I wanted kicking and punching and buckets of blood and that's exactly what I got!

Setting your expectation when you go in is important.

The action was fun, and a good kind of fist fighting that I like. Paul Logan and Matt Willig are both pretty rough and tumble in this movie and for a low budget movie the stunts are really cool.

I heard on the radio during an interview with Paul Logan, Matt Willig, and Costas Mandylor that Paul payed homage to his dad in the movie in several places and when I watched it I noticed and it was really cool he did that. That was worth an entire star by itself for me.

The Horde is a GOOD horror and action movie. I really enjoyed it because I knew exactly what to expect and exactly what not to. Being this is Paul Logan's first script I'll give him a break on the cheesy lines here and there, but even when they were a bit cheesy Costas Mandylor, Matt Willig and crew delivered well. In particular I liked the Cylus character Costas played. Total bad guy and I loved it. Would have liked to see more of Costas on screen.

Overall, I liked the movie. Don't be too turned off by the negative reviews and I'm glad I didn't let them influence me too heavily. Just realize this is a low budget horror movie and enjoy the heck out of your few bucks!

There are certain kinds of folks that write reviews for these indie films, and they fall into just a few categories.

A. People who love movies! (that's me!)

B. People who trash on other people's work because they are jealous (Trolls, boo!)

C. People who think they are critics like some people think they are foodies (delusional!)

D. People who generally just want to spread an honest word about a movie they saw (Good folk)

Figure out which is which and you'll know which reviews to place stock in.