Herd (2023) Review

The zombie movie has been a staple of the horror genre for almost a hundred years. As a result of this there is almost an over-saturation of films, tv series and comics regarding the living dead or infected as writers and directors alike re-tread the same footsteps time and time again. Rarely deviating from the tried and true. It therefore takes something truly special to poke its head out from amongst the crowd and to be noticed.

Enter Herd. The debut full length film from the award-winning director Steven Pierce (whose previous body of work has been in the medium of short films, music concert features and commercials). This is a film that has something that many of its kind lack and that is an incredibly well thought out narrative and impressive depth of character. The main story follows Jamie Miller (played by Ellen Adair) and her wife Alex (Played by Mitzi Akaha) as they embark on a canoeing holiday to try and save their failing marriage, before stumbling into the middle of an outbreak that turns the infected into living-dead cannibals and a battle for territory between two warring factions.

However, once you dig below the surface of the character of Jamie you learn about her troubled past and strained relationship with her father, who refused to accept her sexuality and violently abused her as a result. The way that the film is set out almost uses the outbreak as a secondary issue. With the infected providing more of a vehicle for the storyline and the developing character arcs of the main cast rather than being at the forefront of everything. We see the leader of the main group Big John Gruber (portrayed wonderfully by Jeremy Holm) constantly keeping the audience guessing whether or not he is to be trusted. Seemingly always looking to do right by his people yet coming across as equally untrustworthy in the eyes of Jamie. Whilst his opposing leader Sterling (Timothy V. Murphy) is a straight-forward villain, with his military crew and seemingly single-minded approach to wanting to take what Big John’s crew have accrued by force.

Now, despite all the positive things about the film it is not perfect. The social commentary is spot on with Pierce and co writer James Allerdyce using their platform to highlight the somewhat archaic and misinformed standpoints some people take on homosexuality. The wide shots of the landscape (shot in Poplar Buff, Missouri) perfectly convey a sense of vastness and loneliness which adds to the desperate atmosphere in which the characters live. However, the action is very few and far between, meaning that a lot of the audience who will have tuned in for an out and out horror/action film will be left sadly longing.
The other main issue with the film is the way that it feels as though it is ending just as things are starting to come to a head. With so much time spent on setting the story and building the characters and their growth as people, it feels as though it builds to a point of intrigue and then in a blink of an eye the film is wrapping up and ending. Leaving you to wonder how much more could have been added would they have increased the run time ever so slightly. In short, the build-up is not matched by the payoff.

So, to circle back to the previous statement. It takes a certain something special to stand out amongst the burgeoning zombie/infection movie sub-genre. Now, does Herd achieve that? The answer is both yes and no. On one hand you have a horror film that takes the time to nurture the growth of its characters and backstories which is something that is lacking far too often. However, on the flip side the infected feel a little by-the-numbers. You are infected by a bite or a scratch which will inevitably get hidden by the afflicted until it serves the story (the most over-used cliché in the entire genre) and ultimately the humans are a bigger threat.

Herd is a decent film. But it would have been far more effective if it was turned into a series and really given a chance to breathe rather than crushed down into a little over an hour and a half and robbed of its action and excitement.

Movie Rating:

Herd trailer