Herd

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.

With the 2023 movie "Herd" being a zombie movie, of course I needed no persuasion to sit down and watch it. Had I heard about it prior to watching it? No, not even remotely. But with it being a zombie movie, then I am all game, as I have a knack for anything even remotely zombiesque.

The storyline in "Herd", as written by James Allerdyce and Steven Pierce, was rather slow paced and mundane. It wasn't a particularly thrilling or entertaining foray into the zombie genre. The narrative was rather generic and there wasn't really a whole lot happening throughout the course of the 97 minutes that the movie ran for. And that made sitting through "Herd" somewhat of a struggle and an ordeal.

The acting performances in "Herd" were okay, but nothing outstanding, mind you. There were a couple of familiar faces on the cast list, such as Timothy V. Murphy and Corbin Bernsen.

Visually then "Herd" was okay. Again, nothing outstanding, so you're not in for a grand spectacle of zombie effects, blood, guts and mayhem.

"Herd" came and went without leaving a lasting impression. And it is actually not a movie that I would recommend fans of the zombie genre to rush out and get to watch. It is more of a drama than an actual zombie movie, because the zombie outbreak felt like something that only rummaged around in the background, and there were hardly any zombies in the movie.

My rating of director Steven Pierce's 2023 movie "Herd" lands on a generous three out of ten stars.

Ahhhh again I got my hopes up,hoping this zombie film would add some much needed life into the genre. Sadly it fell flat.

It's a tale of a couples ups and downs that has the occasional really bad zombie thrown in. A lot like an episode of The Walking Dead but nowhere near as good.

It's just a really bad plot with really bad characters and some really bad acting.

They really could have done something with it all,but decided to play safe and carry on with the script which is just predictable and boring. . I ended up hating it and waiting for it to finish so I could go onto my next film.

Sadly the genre is looking worse by the day if this is what people are going to push out.

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.

If you are expecting a Zombie film, you will be sadly mistaken. Why this film is called the "Herd" is beyond me and I truly do not understand why this film is rated so high by IMDb. Some of you will be fooled into watching this film by the trailer or other bias reviews. However, I want to repeat "THIS IS NOT A ZOMBIE FILM"!!!!!!!. I hoped that this film would improve, as I watched it, but it just got worse and was so boring that I just wanted the film to end (so much dialogue that led nowhere and did not enhance the story in anyway).

So, to recap: No Zombies, very little action, the main female character was so annoying that I wanted her to die, no frights, no shocks, absolutely no 'gore', hardly any blood, no scary scenes and NO ZOMBIES!! Waste your money if you want but be prepared to kick yourself for watching such a truly awful film. The title is so misleading, as there is no "HERD"!!!!!