Herd is about Jamie Miller, played by Ellen Adair, who is forced on a trip by her wife on a mission to repair their relationship. Little do they know, the world outside is being torn apart by a deadly epidemic. It was written by James Allerdyce and Steven Pierce, and directed by Steven Pierce.

I think the performances were good. I felt some performances were a little too exaggerated or melodramatic at the start, but things quickly tempered. The characters were pretty good. It took time for me to adjust to them. In the beginning, Jamie and her wife Alex, portrayed by Mitzi Akaha, are little more than their problems. New characters were quickly introduced before they fleshed out the two we start with, but over time most major characters get a little bit of exploration. It’s worth noting that even though the story followed these two women, it was really about one. Alex wasn’t as explored or fleshed out, nor did she have nearly as much to do as Jamie. The less you expect of Alex, the happier you will probably be. If there is one character I think they dropped the ball on, it’s the character of Sterling. Sterling was portrayed by the wonderful Timothy V. Murphy, but as a villain, he was depicted as little more than a boogieman. I think a bit of humanity would have gone a long way with him. To see him have that element to him would make his actions much more impactful to me. The character relationships were good. They were potentially better than the characters overall. When Jamie and Alex were adopted by a militia group early on, I got a genuine sense of the relationships within that group. The dialogue was fine; it certainly had its highlights.

Herd is an hour and thirty-three minutes long. The pacing was as slow as it had to be to portray the mood, the culture, and the spirit of what they aimed to portray. Honestly, I think it could have gone slower. I think it would have been an overall benefit to know who Jamie and Alex were before they were mingled in with the infected. As one might expect from a film of this genre, Herd had a healthy amount of social commentary. Some was very well done, and others felt like a passing thought. It’s not that the commentary was empty, it was vital to the plot, but the way it was done is like, “Oh yeah, by the way *insert social commentary here*. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming.” Herd looked great. There were nice bits of imagery and cinematography scattered throughout. It was quite moody when it wanted to be. It did make me suspenseful, but it took a long time to get there. The practical effects were excellent. Besides Ellen Adair’s performance, the effects were the highlight of the film.

If you break Herd down to its basic components, there isn’t anything here even a casual zombie fan hasn’t seen before. However, it does portray those components through an uncommon lens. While there are quite a few films of this genre that take place in the South, there are fewer that shine a spotlight on country people and country living. If that sounds interesting to you, and you don’t mind that Herd is in no way an action-packed movie, it is worth checking out.