Director(s) – Jesse Thomas Cook (The Hoard, The Hexecutioners) and Matt Wiele (Ejecta)
Starring – Lisa Solberg (Voices, Wasteland), Tony Burgess (To Hell with Harvey, Septic Man), and Barry More (Deadsight, The Hexecutioners)
Release Date – 2018
Rating – 2.5/5
Tagline – “A life and death intervention”
Back over the summer I was in another state grabbing some stuff from Wal-Mart before heading to our hotel when I decided to browse the movie section. The last few years I’ve had a hard time finding something decent at Wal-Mart but on this particular trip I found a DVD for the horror comedy The Hoard which was originally filmed under the title Hoarders. It looked pretty fun so I grabbed it. Now, with things how they are I decided to toss in a few zombie flicks and The Hoard was second on my list. Kind of wish I would have skipped this one.
**Spoiler Alert**The film follows a group of reality television stars as they attempt a new show that mixes hoarders with paranormal investigators. The find a man in Ohio that has been buying up different properties all over town and filling them with the junk he finds. They attempt to clean and repair the homes before they are condemned but along the way they find a plethora of dead cats, vagrants masturbating on everything, and the living dead.**Spoiler Alert**
Honestly, I was really excited to check this one out. The premise really caught my interest but the execution and delivery of the story really made for an extremely awkward watch. The acting in this one is actually pretty fucking good. I really enjoyed the characters and the cast does a fantastic job bringing them to life. Some of the cast has limited credits under their belts but I absolutely fucking loved the characters they gave us.
The story for this one has so much potential but they were unable to bring it all together to create something memorable. The paranormal/hoarding reality aspect could have worked but what we get is a film that is mostly building up to a point that barely has any impact. I was under the impression that this was a zombie flick. Hell, I guess it is because two zombies is better than none I suppose.
Finally, if you are looking for a blood-soaked zombie comedy you are watching the wrong film. The film relies heavily on character development and interaction over kills so we get a film that is surprisingly void of death. We do get a very unintentionally funny death scene. The horrible visuals made a pointless death even more pointless. Overall, The Hoard had a lot going for it but in the end it couldn’t get the story on the same page as the crew. This is one I can not recommend.
