"Herd" (2023)

by Mike Imboden

Normally here at “The Good, the Bad, and the Verdict”, both Joseph and Mike give their thoughts on a slice of cinema. However, here and there they will be taking the reins in a solo outing. For this installment, it’s Mike with a solo review of Herd by Steven Pierce and Dark Sky Films.

Synopsis

When Jamie and her wife, Alex, try to save their failing marriage by going on a canoe trip in rural Missouri, they find themselves stranded after an accident. Trapped between a zombie outbreak and warring militia groups, they must fight to find their way back home.

The Good

As much as I like zombie movies I will readily admit to having become quite jaded and cynical about them, more than likely due to the extreme super-saturation of them. Still, for every couple of dozen cookie cutter, crap CGI entries there are surprises like It Stains the Sand Red, Ravenous, and One Cut of the Dead. And now we can add Herd to that list (although, okay, like 28 Days Later, these aren’t exactly zombies per se, but you get the drift). What helps Herd stand out from the pack is that it doesn’t really focus on the outbreak aspect of things, instead giving us an interesting look at how non-infected people react and what the “herd mentality” does to affect those reactions. There’s a lot to unpack in terms of how “the herd” deals with LGBTQ characters, the government, and in a much more general sense, other people. Nobody is truly black or white and that’s certainly the case here with everyone being fully in that gray middle which makes it very interesting to see how people react, both alone and around others.

There’s one major GOOD aspect that I am placing in the BAD section and you’ll see why when you get down there in a few seconds.

The Bad

There honestly isn’t much to say here. While there are many of the usual tropes at play, the way Steven Pierce and co-writer James Allerdyce present them spin them in a unique light, taking away much of the “sameness” that they’d feel like in other movies.

The only real “bad” thing, and it’s what I alluded to up above, is that the makeup work is fantastic but is sadly under-utilized. The infected here sport lots of nasty looking pustules and oozing boils and the few times we get to see them they are quite nasty looking. While the plot didn’t require that we see too many of the infected, it’s a shame that such nice work wasn’t seen more often.

The Verdict

There’s not a whole lot of originality anymore within the zombie sub-genre of horror films, so it’s nice when something like Herd comes along, bringing a new perspective on things. While you’ll find many of the same tropes here that have become cliché in other films, Pierce presents them within a different light and context to what most viewers will expect. Herd will certainly give you pause (even if only momentarily) to think about how people react to certain situations and what sort of ramifications their actions might have.

Herd, from Dark Sky Films, is available on digital and VOD on October 13, 2023

Herd