SusannahBlack Sheep
April 18th 2007 10:33
BLACK SHEEP (2006)
Starring: Nathan Meister, Danielle Mason, Peter Feeney, Oliver Driver, Tandi Wright.
Written By: Jonathan King.
Director: Jonathan King.
There is something evil lurking in the innocent green pastures of New Zealand. Something that stalks the rolling hills: you see them everywhere, you think they’re harmless and then they say the one thing that sends a shiver down your spine. That’s right, that word is: Baaa.
New Zealand is good at making two kinds of film. The first is dark, brooding dramas about tragedy and death. The second is horror films. It all sounds a bit morose. I guess it has something to do with being isolated at the bottom of the world that makes us so macabre.
Black Sheep, unsurprisingly, falls into the second category of horror. The plot is this: Henry arrives back at the family farm to sort out his share of the estate with his brother Angus. Henry has not been back since the death of his father, and a sheep related trauma as a child that has left him with a strong phobia of sheep. It transpires that Angus has been doing some illegal experiments on the farm, genetically modifying sheep in order to create the ultimate wool to market to the world. Genetic modification being to the Noughties, what nuclear waste was to the eighties: the source of plausible sounding pseudo science that can take an ordinary animal, like a sheep, and turn it into a blood lusting, flesh devouring, monster.
But what could be funnier than flesh eating sheep. It’s a pretty good premise. The trouble begins when two activists, Experience (yes, really) and Grant trespass onto the farm in order to gain proof that illegal research is taking place. Grant gets overzealous, and steals a jar from a container intended for disposal. A deadly chain of meat craving evil sheepness is unleashed, when, from the jar emerges a modified baby lamb, with only one thing on its mind, and it isn’t grass. This lamb goes on to infect the flock, creating hundreds of sheep out for human blood. That is not the only thing it infects. For the bite also brings about a change in people. This must be the first time a were-sheep has ever appeared on screen.
Black sheep is a lot of fun. Belonging to the same horror comedy genre as Brain Dead and Shaun of the Dead, it manages to keep up the laughs, while dolling out liberal doses of gore. Sheep have never been so scary, either. They may look silly when they run, with their wool wobbling from side to side, but the sheep manage to be genuinely intimidating when they stand still, gazing blankly at their intended victims with their soulless, evil eyes. The massacre of the business executives ensures you will be looking twice at sheep from now on.
The effects are well done too. No computer graphics here. It is all prosthetics, courtesy of Weta – Lord of the Rings – Workshop. The film riffs on Night of the Living Dead, with meat craving sheep surrounding the house, there is a dash of romance, just desserts for the wrongdoers, and some putting aside of the past to emerge a stronger man with a purpose.
It may not be as brilliant as the superior Shaun of the Dead, and not all the jokes fire, but Black Sheep does provide for an entertaining, and undemanding 90 minutes. It’s gory, it’s silly, and it’s fun.
Starring: Nathan Meister, Danielle Mason, Peter Feeney, Oliver Driver, Tandi Wright.
Written By: Jonathan King.
Director: Jonathan King.
There is something evil lurking in the innocent green pastures of New Zealand. Something that stalks the rolling hills: you see them everywhere, you think they’re harmless and then they say the one thing that sends a shiver down your spine. That’s right, that word is: Baaa.
New Zealand is good at making two kinds of film. The first is dark, brooding dramas about tragedy and death. The second is horror films. It all sounds a bit morose. I guess it has something to do with being isolated at the bottom of the world that makes us so macabre.
Black Sheep, unsurprisingly, falls into the second category of horror. The plot is this: Henry arrives back at the family farm to sort out his share of the estate with his brother Angus. Henry has not been back since the death of his father, and a sheep related trauma as a child that has left him with a strong phobia of sheep. It transpires that Angus has been doing some illegal experiments on the farm, genetically modifying sheep in order to create the ultimate wool to market to the world. Genetic modification being to the Noughties, what nuclear waste was to the eighties: the source of plausible sounding pseudo science that can take an ordinary animal, like a sheep, and turn it into a blood lusting, flesh devouring, monster.
But what could be funnier than flesh eating sheep. It’s a pretty good premise. The trouble begins when two activists, Experience (yes, really) and Grant trespass onto the farm in order to gain proof that illegal research is taking place. Grant gets overzealous, and steals a jar from a container intended for disposal. A deadly chain of meat craving evil sheepness is unleashed, when, from the jar emerges a modified baby lamb, with only one thing on its mind, and it isn’t grass. This lamb goes on to infect the flock, creating hundreds of sheep out for human blood. That is not the only thing it infects. For the bite also brings about a change in people. This must be the first time a were-sheep has ever appeared on screen.
Black sheep is a lot of fun. Belonging to the same horror comedy genre as Brain Dead and Shaun of the Dead, it manages to keep up the laughs, while dolling out liberal doses of gore. Sheep have never been so scary, either. They may look silly when they run, with their wool wobbling from side to side, but the sheep manage to be genuinely intimidating when they stand still, gazing blankly at their intended victims with their soulless, evil eyes. The massacre of the business executives ensures you will be looking twice at sheep from now on.
The effects are well done too. No computer graphics here. It is all prosthetics, courtesy of Weta – Lord of the Rings – Workshop. The film riffs on Night of the Living Dead, with meat craving sheep surrounding the house, there is a dash of romance, just desserts for the wrongdoers, and some putting aside of the past to emerge a stronger man with a purpose.
It may not be as brilliant as the superior Shaun of the Dead, and not all the jokes fire, but Black Sheep does provide for an entertaining, and undemanding 90 minutes. It’s gory, it’s silly, and it’s fun.
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Film & TV on DVD