Corbin Bernsen | It's Bloggin Evil!

Having been banished by her abusive and intolerant father, Jamie Miller struggles inside her once amorous relationship with girlfriend Alex as they make a new life for themselves in the city. The dwindling connection between them forces their hand into a couple’s canoe trip retreat down a river near Jamie’s hometown to hopefully rekindle what was lost. When Alex accidently breaks her leg after a nasty couple’s spat, Jamie has no choice but to seek help within town only to find the town is under siege by a mutating virus, turning infected into shambling shells of their former selves. The Government’s downplaying of the containment of the small town leads to armed militias warring against each other for food and supplies and Jamie and Alex are caught in the middle of a tripartite conflict between her Father’s prejudicially like-minded militia, a ruthless band of rogue soldiers, and the walking infected.

Socio-political outbreak horror “Herd” is the latest project from music video and documentarian filmmaker Steven Pierce trying his hand at a full-length fictional narrative. Pierce co-pens the film with James Allerdyce, both of whom have worked on the 2020 music documentary “Jose James & Taali Live from Levon Helm Studios” about the creative process of live-streaming performance at Woodstock venue. The song and dance of the 2023 released “Herd” pulls inspiration from recent popular talking points in America with a couple of conspicuous drifts from one surface level incredible horror, a lesbian couple stumbling into the unbridled mess stirred by virus mutated townsfolk, to a more realistic horror of gun-toting narrowmindedness, extreme self-preservation, and government half-truisms. Alongside Steven Pierce and James Allerdyce producing are also debuting fictional narrative filmmakers with Michael Szmyga, Matt Walton, Lev Peker, Matt Mundy, Bret Carr, Lori Kay, and Ryan Guess under the banner of Framework Productions.

Initially after the opening scene of something zombie-contagiously brewing, the story dives head first into despondency of Jamie Miller (Ellen Adair, “Trick”) and Alex Kanai (Mitzi Akaha, “Bashira”). Not at first evident of what kind of relationship sends these two on a canoe trip in the middle of nowhere but becomes evident quickly that the two are a couple with Alex forcing a last ditch effort hand to rescue a ship that’s slowly sinking in the abyss with troubled girlfriend Jamie. While Jamie has her extraneous displeases with their relationship, very similar to most couples, the knotty crux more so lies Jamie’s abusive, bigot of a father who lives inside her head and, for some reason or another, has flared up recently despite be resolutely at bay for what seems to be years into the relationship. That bit of missing backstory becomes an harbinger of many other unexplained or underdeveloped aspects of “Herd’s” genetic makeup that funnel down to not fleshing out many characters, such as the father character who is plainly found deceased in the second act with yet to no significant progress made with a character who has tormented our heroine protagonists to the point of a near mental breakdown with disturbing visions of a faceless mother amongst the crippling of her disavowed, disapproved relationship with another woman. “Major League’s” Corbin Bernsen plays the father briefly before succumbing to an offscreen fate and Bernsen’s no stranger to zombie genre having directed one himself (“Dead Air”) and would have greatly added to “Herd’s” undercurrents as a headstrong xenophobe with a radical complex. Instead, we get Big John Gruber (Jeremy Holm, “Don’t Look Back”), a complete and utter 180 from the volatile buildup of Bernsen’s conditioned and dogmatic militant. Nothing inherently flawed about Big John’s softness and sympathy toward a difficult situation, even going as far as supporting Jamie’s same-sex relationship, in what could be construed as a parallel of dispositions that ultimately bleed red all in the same as redneck conspiracists will never bleed out, such as seen with militia lackeys Bernie Newson (Brandon James Ellis) and Tater (Jeremy Lawson, “Happy Hunting”) who hold onto their conspiracies as well as their guns. Amanda Fuller (“Starry Eyes”), Steven Pierce, Matt Walton, Ronan Starness, and “Shallow Ground’s” Timothy V. Murphy and voice actor Dana Snyder of “Squidbillies” fill out the cast.

“Herd,” once titled “It Comes From Within,” very much implies the sheep who blindly follow the influential proximal powers into separating factions of dependency on the very moment national authority downplays the truth and designates into a free-for-all for survival, a doomsday prepper’s wet dream. “Herd” catapults a very anti-government harpoon message right into the lampooning of Midwest gun nuts and schismatic truthers. These instances surrounding a not-too-exaggerated truth detrimentally snaps the arc for the initial, more considerable character metamorphosis with heroine lead Jamie Miller. We’re no longer on her track toward parental recovery that’s laid a substantial foundation in the first two acts with flashbacks of her father verbally tirades and banishment, only able to visualize her mother’s faceless corpse, and the brittle relationship she has with girlfriend Alex when going into the third act careens into a clash of the small-town titans. The disinvestment of an endeavoring lesbian courtship plagued by mind-traumatizing scar tissue and a frustrated partner is ran over by the warring militias to the point where we’re scuttled from face-off to face-off and Jamie and Alex road-to-unity takes a backseat wholeheartedly. The unexplained infected are also pulled into the backseat as an unfortunate consequence of said conflict that missed the mark explaining the climatic scene with the infected, shambling, boil-riddled bodies’ near unintelligible and moaning in unison wail that conveys a less antagonized existence and to defend themselves when threatened. The humanizing moments are lost in the wake of war and conservative hoopla that insidious impale anything meaningful, but perhaps that was the message all along, a sort of blindness or autocratic ways to diverge free thinkers, as exampled with Big John Gruber whose liberal opinions and talk did nothing for him in the end.

Get into the “Herd” mentality with a new DVD from the UK distributor High Fliers Films. The MPEG-2 encoded PAL DVD has a widescreen display with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Compression decoding bitrate has impressive measure up to an average of 7 Mbps, leaning toward more detail, less artefact intrusion. Shot in more rural areas of Missouri, though I believe the story takes place in the Midwest, Kansas maybe from the dialogue, an enriching scope of landscape, such as a dusty crossroads or a vast river shot from above, adds palpable details and texture with a natural grading. Brennan Full doesn’t go fancy with an extravagance appears but exercises control over the contrast and shadows to obscure the infected lurking about and also handles the camera professionally, resulting in a cleaner, precise, and full of various angles and shots that typically would be nonexistent in most indie works. Full also retains much of the natural and environmental irradiance for lighting without the use of gels to augment tone. Two English audio options are available to select from, a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and a Dolby Digital 5.1, though not listed on the back cover. The surround sound mix shepherds in a better flexier channel distribution with back and side channels offering broader infected gutturals and militia gunfire. Dialogue is clear and clean of hiss and other banes in the leveled whereabouts of the digitally recorded audio layers. No subtitles are available. The High Fliers DVD is void of special features within the static menu framework. The clear amaray case unfortunately displays a shoddy composite image of a boil-repleted infected man with a beard trimmed with bad photoshop scissors giving way to a horde of baldies, which the latter doesn’t closely represent the “Herd.” There is no insert inside the casing. UK certified 15 for a sundry, laundry list of strong language, violence, gore, threat, horror, domestic abuse, and homophobia, the DVD’s playback is region 2, PAL encoded, and has a runtime of 97 minutes. “Herd” variegates down many different possibilities – a tumultuous fraught lesbian couple, tormenting father issues, governmental lies, rural dissidence, inexplicable infected creatures – but never settles to resolute one of them with confidence and that’s hurts the film’s better laid in visual portraiture.

After an intense stand off with a powerful and playful demon during a supernatural expedition gone wrong, the unfortunate death of a young girl has Jonas Littleton facing skeptics that hand the ghost hunter a five year sentence behind bars ruling. His release from an Arizona prison offers him a second chance to start over with his wife and young son and Jonas makes promises to no more paranormal pursuits in hopes for a normal life. Miraculously, Jonas is offered a good paying job despite his manslaughter record that affords him seven years of suburban comforts and family growth, but little does Littleton know that his good fortune is the handiwork of the very same demon who bested him so many years ago, tricking him into a underhanded deal that requires his son’s soul with his wife being a casualty of war. Another seven years later, an obsessed Jonas fields every call that comes across his paranormal investigator’s desk as he tirelessly searches for his son and with the help of an eager investigator, Ron Tippard, and a green horn assistant, Ellie French, Jonas will come face-to-face with his rival evil again for one last time.

Welcome back to part two of our unexpected two part review segment of films that were disowned, supposedly, by their filmmakers. Today, we take a look at the 2010 supernatural thriller, “Hunting Evil,” or more commonly known under the title as “Closets” or “The Closet.” Already, the evidence is clearly powerful against “Hunting Evil” that alternate titles bares the potential markings of a repudiated film, aimed to cloak and shield the ramifications that would be supplied to unsuspecting audiences renting or blind purchasing. Director Charles Peterson has been reported to have disowned the Bob Madia (“You Can’t Kill Stephen King”) penned film because of too many chefs in the kitchen, if you smell what I’m cooking. Peterson, who has directed other indie horror projects such as “The Eleventh Aggression” and most recently, “A Killer Awaits,” which will be released this month, has ties with the investment group Old World Investors Group Incorporated a.k.a. OWIGI Films. Now, OWIGI Films is ran by “Hunting Evil’s” producer and star Lenny Rethaber (“Blood Moon Rising”). So, the lingering questions is this: Did star-producer Lenny Rethaber force the whip and reigns from Charles Peterson? Well, all this reviewer can say is that Lenny Rethaber also produced “The Eleventh Aggression” and the upcoming release “A Killer Awaits,” so seems like any adversity between the two has long since settled or just comes and goes with the industry territory.

However, what’s inherently curious about the DVD release from World Wide Multi Media is the three names headlined on the DVD’s front cover to which none are the film’s star Lenny Rethaber as the embattled Jonas Littleton. Knowing the type of distribution company WWMM is, more than likely the case is the first three credits, which are also in alphabetical order, and slapped them onto the front cover, one of which is just an unnamed barkeep who has approx. 5 minutes of screen time and not one other single credit to his name. As Jonas Littleton, Rethaber is soda flat with no bite and fizz to his performance and though his entertaining enough, the producer-star is also on the wrong side of the tracks in that category. There’s even whispering talk that “Major League’s” Corbin Bernsen, who has dappled in directing horror with “Dead Air” starring Bill Moseley (“Devil’s Rejects”), had issues with the producer (Rethaber), yielding to yet another instance of production problems. Though I’ve had verbal disagreements with Bernsen with his previous work, I find his performance as an enigmatic father of a missing child refreshing and complex, but the fate of his character poofs into thin air as if the writers, directors, or, most likely, producer didn’t know how to finalize the character. The sole best role comes from Patrick Adams as the enthusiastic paranormal investigator Ron Tippard. Not to be confused with “Suits” actor Patrick J. Adams, the Arizona resident Adams sparked life into a relatively unhinged project with an amusing and interesting performance in a side kick role who has substantial screen time and adds value to the situation. Rounding out this remaining cast in this conundrum is Darl Chryst (“Autopsy: A Love Story”), Dena Esquivel Frederickson, Jackson Furedy, Sallie Glaner (“The Visitant”), Davina Joy (“Death of a Ghost Hunter”), Pete Kelly, and Orchid Tao.

A twitching, tingly part of my soul yearned for “Hunting Evil” to come out on top, to be a solid supernatural saturation that a viewer, like myself, can sink into immensely, and with a script that precedes “The Conjuring” with the perceptive view of an unoriginal, yet sparsely used investigator concept, the appeal hyperdrives into salivation, but instead of salivation, “Hunting Evil” sluggishly drips slowly from the mouth’s corner crevices with script plotholes, badly layout composites, and undercooked characters. The story follows Jonas for nearly two decades, yet the man never ages despite already starting out looking middle aged to begin with so where are the streaks of grey, the loose and wrinkled skin, or maybe even a display a little physical ailments? Each of these natural flaws could have further enhance his lifespan evolution on Earth and speak to a little down to Earth as well. The composites look horrendously old fashion like from an antiquated video game platform. It’s as if the creators of 3D Realms not only provided the MS-DOS source code for those amazing Duke Nukem 3D levels also provided the visual worlds for “Hunting Evil” actors to humorously and painfully act against. the underwhelming, unfinished characters were slightly touched on before, but their arcs just ultimately poof into smoke without constructive reasoning or even to leave as fishhook into another movie.

“Hunting Evil” haunts onto DVD from World Wide Multi Media and MDVisual. Presented in a widescreen format and clocking in a 90 minute runtime, the DVD technically has little faults to discuss aside from the coloring looking a little desaturated and don’t visually pop. Some digital noise from the low end production quality during the night scenes that are accompanied by a little compression blotchiness, but the DVD passes muster in image quality. The English language 5.1 surround sound finds itself limited moderately to a two-channel output which is unfortunate with the amount of demonic tomfoolery being subjected to Jonas and his team. Low of the LFE and minimalistic on the depth and range, “Hunting Evil” couldn’t scare the pants off viewers audibly alone. There are no bonus features on this disc. Jonas Littleton’s troubles spread beyond a malevolent and playful demon destroying his family with “Hunting Evil” targeted as a suspect of an unfinished and problematic film. Whether turmoil driven or just the lack of rightfully placed funding, the spooky stories of paranormal investigators are left to the genre platonic professionalism of James Wan and not Charles Peterson and Lenny Rethaber.