Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I wish I was going to be in Austin for SXSW this year. Horror movie fans are going to have one heck of an evening when both ALL THE BOYS LOVE MANDY LANE and BLACK SHEEP are screening. I’m itching to see both of them, and here’s another review of Jonathan King’s killer sheep movie:

Hey Harry, I just got a chance to see the upcoming New Zealand comedy/horror flick Black Sheep as an advance screening down here in Auckland, and as a huge fan of other movies of the genre like Peter Jackson’s Dead Alive and the Evil Dead movies, I can honestly say that
the movie holds its own in a gorily satisfying way.

Going into the movie, I was a little wary about the idea driving the plot; even for a comedy/horror, the idea of raging evil sheep sounds, well, stupid. Yet from the moment that the lights dimmed until when the credits rolled, the thought never crossed my mind again. The story was simple enough and seemed to steal from other films of the genres, namely Dead Alive and 28 Days Later: on a farm in the middle of rural New Zealand, an agricultural science experiment goes terribly wrong when an embryonic mutant sheep creature gets accidentally released by (you guessed it) animal rights activists, and the corruption of the sheep into blood-thirsty monsters rapidly spreads. Add in the fact that if a human gets bitten that they too become infected (but in their own special way) and you have the basic plot for the film. Sounds like another one of those “this is what happens when science goes too far”
movies, and to be perfectly frank, it is, so don’t come in expecting anything dreadfully new or provocative in terms of the story.

But, let’s be honest, it’s not really a killer plot that drives us to see a movie like this. What Black Sheep manages to do extremely well is what is going to make it pull in its target audience: a healthy dose of comedy mixed with ungodly amounts of gut-ripping, puss-oozing, and
over-the-top violence. Skin gets stretched to its ripping point, a game of intestinal tug-o-war is played, and blood is spilt by the gallon throughout the film. Think of the brutal death of Dylan Moran’s character at the end of Shaun of the Dead, double the violence, and then multiple it by fifty for the amount of times it occurs, and you approach the type of senseless gore this film offers. As a matter of fact, this movie has actually succeeded where many other movies of the genre have failed; I’m not going to ruin anything, but a certain scene involving a pit of sheep innards towards the middle of the film nearly turned my stomach to the point where I had to turn away from the movie (which, of course, is exactly what we want it to do, so bravo!).

I was really impressed by how well first-time director Jonathan King managed to blend the two categories of horror and comedy, never taking the film too far in either direction and creating a great blend of the two elements. The acting on behalf of Nathan Meister as the sheep-a-phobic protagonist Henry was excellent, though his co-actress Danielle Mason left something to be desired as the hippy love-interest Experience. Glenis Levestem is fun to watch as the painfully oblivious Mrs. Mac, but perhaps most entertaining to watch was Oliver Driver, who plays Experience’s super-activist boyfriend that originally unleashes the evil on the farm toward the beginning of the film. Ultimately, as long as one of the characters had a weapon in their hand and was fighting off a malicious horde of villainous sheep, I was content.

Let’s get this straight -- Black Sheep certainly isn’t going to be up for any awards, nor will it probably be recognized by anyone other than a small cult following. Such is the fate of movies like this, but I have no doubt that those who have liked movies of this genre in the past will find themselves entertained by what Black Sheep has to offer.

Please call me Livewire.