Celebrate resurrection the sapphic way this Easter with two lesbian-led zombie films exploring love and loss at the end of the world.
Easter is a time of resurrection, transformation, and confronting the flesh—a perfect backdrop for a sapphic zombie double feature that’s as soulful as it is blood-soaked. For this special edition of Sapphic Sunday, we’re serving up an unexpected but surprisingly fitting duo: Herd (2023), a rural-American survival horror with bite, and Ever After (2018), a haunting German fairy tale of the undead.
Both films feature lesbian protagonists at the heart of their stories, navigating the apocalypse through love, trauma, and the complex question of what it means to come back from something.
While these films differ wildly in tone, style, and geography, together they offer a refreshing twist on the zombie genre, one that’s as emotionally resonant as it is thematically rich.
If you’re in the mood for flesh-ripping and heart-rending this Easter, look no further.
Herd (2023)
“People are the real monsters” is a phrase so tired it could be embalmed—but Herd breathes new (undead) life into the idea.
Set in a Missouri town infected by both a zombie virus and old-school American machismo, Herd follows Jamie Miller (Ellen Adair), who returns to her conservative hometown with her estranged wife Alex (Mitzi Akaha) after a traumatic incident fractures their marriage.
What starts as an attempt to heal and reconnect quickly devolves into a survival nightmare as a viral outbreak traps them in a volatile war between paramilitary factions, redneck militias, and the ravenous infected.
At its core, Herd isn’t just about dodging zombies—it’s about navigating emotional and ideological landmines.
Jamie’s queerness, once a reason to flee, becomes a source of both vulnerability and strength. Her rekindled relationship with Alex is the emotional fulcrum of the story, providing moments of intimacy and humanity amidst the chaos.
Directed by Steven Pierce, the film delivers both tense action sequences with tight, claustrophobic cinematography and a surprisingly emotional third-act payoff.
It explores political paranoia and social fracture in a pandemic scenario that feels frighteningly familiar.
While Herd doesn’t revolutionize the zombie formula, it succeeds by treating its characters seriously and offering a female-led narrative with realistic queer representation.
For fans of: The Crazies, It Comes at Night, and The Walking Dead. Watch on Tubi.
Ever After (Endzeit) (2018)
If Herd is a survival thriller grounded in the brutal now, Ever After is an elegiac tone poem for the end of the world.
In a dystopian Germany where the zombie outbreak has been “contained” between two surviving cities—Weimar and Jena—two emotionally scarred young women escape their respective traumas and embark on a journey through the undead-infested countryside. Vivi (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) is naive and haunted by guilt, while Eva (Maja Lehrer) is hardened, angry, and harboring a secret.
Their slow-burning connection grows as the wilderness reclaims the world. There’s an ecological allegory lurking under every vine: nature, once ignored, now dictates the rules. And it doesn’t want humanity back.
What sets Ever After apart is its haunting quietude.
Directed by Carolina Hellsgård, the film is visually stunning, with painterly cinematography and minimalist sound design that leans into the eerie beauty of a world post-collapse.
It’s a slow burn, to be sure—but for viewers who embrace meditative horror, it’s hypnotic. The subtle yet powerful lesbian relationship here is tender, tentative, and deeply symbolic.
Unlike Herd, where the romance is established and tested, Ever After shows us love as a lifeline—a possible future worth surviving for.
For fans of: A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Annihilation. Watch it on Tubi.
Double Feature Takeaway: Resurrection Is a Queer Mood
Though wildly different in tone, Herd and Ever After make an inspired double bill. Both examine what it means to survive—not just physically, but emotionally, relationally, and ethically—after the world collapses.
In Herd, love must withstand the ugliness of the real world; in Ever After, love is the fragile hope that maybe a new world is still possible.
If You Only Watch One…
Choose Herd if you want something more traditionally satisfying—tense, character-driven horror with a relationship at its core and plenty of sociopolitical meat on the bone. It’s the more accessible of the two, especially for viewers who want a clear arc, action thrills, and a front-and-center explicitly queer couple.
Choose Ever After if you prefer your horror with an arthouse edge—dreamy, sad, slow, and full of metaphors. It’s less a thrill ride and more a ghostly walk through the garden of queer becoming.
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