Hola all. Massawyrm here.
God I love this fucking movie. Sometimes, just sometimes, you are gifted with a little gem of a film that is so much fun and has zero pretense about what it is trying to accomplish, that you can't help but give yourself over to it. Make no mistake about it, Black Sheep is trying desperately to grasp at being Peter Jackson's Dead Alive (aka Braindead), but the magical thing about it, is that it succeeds. This film is deliciously, diabolically and deliberately fucked right the hell up. I mean, it's about killer sheep (or zombie sheep), hell bent on eating the flesh of man while a ragtag group of survivors try to escape the farm they are contained in.
How can that not be the plot of, like, the best fucking movie ever?
Okay, so there I go off into the land of hyperbole, but what isn't an exaggeration is just how much fun this is. The key point to this is that the film knows exactly what it is. It's a clever monster spoof not unlike Tremors in that it both plays by all the rules of the genre while also having its fun with it. I mean, they're sheep. That eat people. While those that survive their bite turn into….wait for it…weresheep. Oh. Hell. Yes.
It's a goofy, outrageously hysterical farce that grabs hold of you and says "You're either with this or you're not, but were going full speed from this point on with or without you!" There's homage. There's over the top gore. There's high comedy. I laughed, I stomped, I howled. This movie would not let up. It is actually the most fun I've had in a theatre all year and quite possibly the single best midnight movie of its era.
What really sets this apart, however, is just how high its production values are. Usually films of its ilk suffer from a crippling lack of a real budget, but somehow, probably based upon the pitch alone, they managed to get WETA to do the sheep creature effects. So WETA added their demented touch, making these sheep positively deranged and looking far cooler than they have any right to be.
This is a very special kind of kitschy cool that you don't find but once every few years. A special treat for anyone who is a fan of this kind of film, you should pretty much know now whether or not this is for you. If the mere mention of man-eating sheep doesn't send a giddy little geek shiver up and down your spine, odds are this will just be too silly and hard to swallow. But if you perked up at the very mention of the films conceit, then you need to not walk, but run, to the nearest theatre showing this. It's a film that begs to be shown at midnight at the Alamo Drafthouse with a pitcher of Shiner and 20 of your closest friends.
You will laugh. You will stomp. You will howl. Highly Fucking Recommended.
Until next time friends, smoke ‘em if ya got ‘em.
Massawyrm
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