Movie review of Black Sheep

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Black Sheep

June 25th 2007 02:50

Here’s a perverse Kiwi joke (popular amongst Aussies); Q: Why do you screw a sheep close to the edge of a cliff? A: Because they push back. Well, in writer/director Jonathon King’s splat-stick comedy horror Black Sheep (2006), the ovine’s do more than push back, they charge back, molars bared, hoofing up bloody revenge!

Owing a large amount of inspiration from Peter Jackson’s first two features; Bad Taste (1986) and Braindead (1991), and utilizing his hugely successful special effects unit Weta Workshop, King has made the ultimate tongue-in-cheek tribute to New Zealand’s most profitable export: lamb meat and wool. But he’s twisted the paean into a gross-out horror flick, with a large emphasis on the guffaws.

Greenie Grant gets what's comin' to him

Grant gets an earful

Two farmland brothers come to loggerheads over the elder brother’s experimentation in genetic engineering (sheep that is). The result? Massive flocks of zombified sheep terrorizing the landscape and the locals. It sounds utterly silly, and it is, but the movie is never meant to be taken seriously, far from it, well, apart from the ever so tenuous hint that playing around with genetic engineering to produce better livestock is perhaps not such an ethically sound practice. But hey, Black Sheep was never meant to be about agricultural socio-politics. It’s about bloody baaaaaad jokes and puh-lenty of blood and guts.

Shot around the bottom of the North Island (the Wairapapa and Wellington, my home town) of New Zealand, Black Sheep takes place entirely on an expansive farm owned by Oldfield brothers, Angus (Peter Feeney) and Henry (Nathan Meister). Angus is the arrogant profiteer, while younger Nathan is afraid of sheep having been traumatized as a young boy by his older brother draped with the carcass of a bloodied sheep.

Sheep's breath, don't you love it!

Meanwhile two young neo-hippie environmentalists, Experience (Danielle Mason) and Grant (Oliver Driver) are preparing to disrupt the on-location laboratory owned by Angus and operated by Dr. Rush (Tandi Wright) and her colleagues. Farmhand Tucker (Tammy Davis) joins forces with Henry and Experience in an effort to get the situation under control. And then there’s Mrs Mac, played by Kiwi theatre and television veteran, Glenis Levestam, who only wants what’s best for the Oldfield boys. Everyone and everything eventually collides.

Experience and Henry lambstruck

Black Sheep is well paced, looks good, and despite some of the dialogue jokes falling flat it’s a pretty smart and funny movie. I’m not a big fan of low-brow comedy horror, and I’m the first to call a spade a spade – even if it is a flick from my own clan. The New Zealand film industry is small enough that it’s all a matter of degrees of separation, and in this case, like in the true crime drama Out of the Blue (2006), I know several of the actors, as well as the director.

Angus and close family friend

Black Sheep works a wild woolly charm. It’s tongue is lodged in cheek right up to the final shot. The performances are good, nothing exceptional. The real stars are the sheep, well, actually, the sheep effects. Weta have achieved some excellent work indeed. There are many nods to other cult horror movies; one blatant one borders on plagiarism, but the tone is too playful for it to annoy the purists. I’m referring to a transformation into a were-sheep that visually lifts straight from An American Werewolf in London (1981), but hey, it's all in decent baaaad taste. Damn, I can't help myself!

Carnage down on the farm

It’s a very New Zealand movie, from the colloquial banter right up to the satirical stab at Kiwis fucking sheep (hey, if we can take the piss out of ourselves – to be precise, out of foreigners who believe such tripe, as honestly and unashamedly as that then I give this movie big props!). Jonathon King, whose debut feature this is, knows his stuff and it shows (in a brief, poignant visual reference, one of the victims is seen reading The Penguin History of New Zealand, which was written by King’s late father Dr Michael King).

No time to act sheepish! Baaaaack off!

Black Sheep is instant cult fodder. No doubt repeat viewings will be favoured by an obsessive minority. “The violence of the lambs” teases the tagline. It’s definite beer (Tui pale ale anyone?) and popcorn viewing, with a bunch of mates, a coupla tinnies, and a choice widescreen plasma, ay bro!

I saw the movie as part of the Sydney Film Festival with a full house of appreciative shlock-horror fans. An Australian theatrical release is scheduled for August 16.

Here’s the trailer:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

10 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by Damo

June 25th 2007 04:53

Now that looks like a bit of late friday night fun.
They look da-a-a-a-a-angerous.

Comment by KylieW

June 25th 2007 06:28

Celebrity Obsession

That looks like great fun. I definitely have to see that. I think I'll drag my kiwi mate along with me, he'll love it.

Comment by charles

June 25th 2007 06:40

ZCars
Ponderous

Damn that sheep looks angry in the second pic!

Charles.

Comment by JohnDoe

June 25th 2007 12:37

Film & TV on DVD

Great review as always...Im still chuckling, look forward to viewing it.

Comment by D. Armenta

June 25th 2007 18:21

The Florida Keys and Everglades
The Black Sheep Chronicles
What constitutes bad manners?
The male mystique
Debate Fan
L.A.M.P.

Looks like shear fun..hope you're not pulling the wool over our eyes on this one.

I respect you and JD's reviews so much I'd go see this like a lamb to the slaughter; you mutton make jokes about this..

Well, you started it!1

**Wasn't "Whale Rider" a Kiwi flick?

Comment by Cibbuano

June 25th 2007 23:32

Hunt Famous
Orble Post of the Day
Fat Cult
Techbreak

100% awesome.

When will it come out in Australia?

The only Kiwi joke I know (told by an Aussie):

An Aussie goes to New Zealand for a holiday. He's hiking over some hills when he sees a Kiwi screwing a sheep.

'Oi, mate!' he shouts from his vantage point, 'you're supposed to shear them!'

The Kiwi stops, turns and yells back 'I a'int shearing this with anybody!'