The Horde (2016)

Okay this is a weird mashup. Part cheesy action movie (think the made for HBO flicks from the ‘80s) and party brutal cannibal horror flick! Filled with familiar “B” movie actors in supporting roles The Horde has the potential to be awesome or awesomely terrible.

The movie opens up with a couple chilling in the woods being all romantic. They are interrupted by some nasty looking redneck mutants who so some murdering and other things. Then we meet up with a former Navy Seal, John, and his professor girlfriend, Selina. She is taking her photography class to a beautiful forest, so they can take some pictures for extra credit. Guess where that might be? Yep they are headed right into the cannibal’s backyard! To be fair though if they didn’t this would be a short movie. Selina convinces John to come along and off they go.

After an obligatory Rednecks are bad encounter at a bar they reach their destination and setup camp. Before they can roast a marshmallow, well okay they actually did get to roast one, the mutants attack. During this fight John gets knocked out and rolls down a hill. He wakes up to find everyone gone and goes looking for them. While that happens, we find out that the mutant cannibal rednecks are being used as guards for three escaped convicts that are running a meth lab! The leader picks Selina as his prize and gives the others as meat (the men) and breeders (ladies). Horrible things happen until John shows up and proceeds to kill most of the bad guys and escape with the survivors.

I’m going to review this one a bit differently. First let me talk about the action movie bits of The Horde. This is one of those typical setups where the bad guys don’t know who they are messing with. The character of John pretty much tears thru them without receiving much damage himself. There are a couple one liners and the obligatory car chase. The fight choreography is a bit rough at times with people pausing or taking their turn rather than just stabbing him or piling on top. But in a goofy way that works. I wasn’t expecting top notch work in a low budget flick like The Horde. I consider this part of the movie to be okay.

I really dig the makeup on some of the mutants

The horror aspects are also very familiar. If you have ever seen a “fish out of water” city folk vs hillbilly movie then there is nothing new here. They go into the woods, are a bit obnoxious, and then many of them get dead. There are a few cringe worthy moments with the annoying rich get getting butchered after he watches a cannibal eat his tongue… The scene with the “breeder” is brutal both when they nail her hands to a table and what happens afterwards. It was sort of jarring how this movie would shift from cheeseball action flick to disturbingly nasty horror and back again. Not sure they belonged together, but I give them credit for trying.

The gore is decent heads getting smashed, legs cut off, throats slashed, and more. There is even a cool bit with John going all “Roadhouse” on one of the mutants. This is a gooey flick that gore hounds will find fun. I also rather enjoyed some of the mutant designs, especially the one that looked like he had wood growing on him. Not all of the designs are great but many of the featured ones are good. We also get to see some familiar faces with the highlights being Vernon Wells and Bill Moseley. This isn’t stunt casting or a glorified cameo as both get a few scenes and are important cogs in the story.

This isn’t a great movie, but it isn’t bad either. I caught it on Amazon Prime so really, I only invested a couple of hours of my time. While I don’t see myself ever needing to watch this one again I thought it was worth checking out.

© Copyright 2018 John Shatzer