Gory Black Sheep Some Tasty Mutton

The sheep are restless on brothers Henry (Nathan Meister) and Angus (Peter Feeney) Oldfield’s New Zealand farm. Something strange has gotten into them, something wicked and evil that could spell doom for the entire country, all of it happening on the very day sheep-a-phobe Henry has chosen to let his vindictive older sibling buy out his portion of the family’s land.

Soon blood is flowing like rivers across the rolling green pastures, the marauding fluffy white mammals devouring anything and everything that has the folly to stand within their path. With trusty farmhand Tucker (Tammy Davis) and bubbly blonde environmentalist Experience (Danielle Mason) at his side, Henry must discover what foul science has turned these once peaceful animals into such bloodthirsty killers before all is lost.

But this trio better be careful. Angus isn’t as clean as he appears in this whole murderous mess. More, he’s also been bitten by one of the four-legged critters, the new toxins running through his veins seriously baaad news unless a person is looking to grow a wintry white coat of fur for the winter. With time running out a solution must be found, the all of New Zealand in immediate danger of being overcome by 40-million sheep and their unholy human offspring.

I can’t say I thought Black Sheep was the greatest gross-out horror comedy I’ve ever seen, but I did find it entertaining, which considering that it is about mutant killer flesh-eating sheep that’s probably saying something right there. This Tremors meets Dead Alive meets Piranha wannabe can’t find a consistent tone or sustain its momentum, the film lurching along in fits and starts like an old pickup truck being driven by a giggly teenager just learning to use a clutch. Even under 90 minutes, the whole thing just feels way too long, and while it isn’t ever a chore to watch I must admit I looked at my watch a time or two before things finally ran their blood-soaked course.

Thankfully, writer/director Jonathan King never takes any of this inherently silly tale remotely seriously, an amusingly bubbly aura of irreverence running throughout making the picture virtually impossible to dislike. Scenes of rampaging sheep stampeding across the rolling hills of New Zealand is good for a few laughs, while the filmmaker actually manages to wring a few globs of gloriously suspenseful tension out of his thin (and unsurprisingly cliché) storyline I can’t say I was really expecting.

Obviously, a picture like this isn’t exactly an actors showcase. That said, the majority of the cast more than hold their own against a backdrop of downy shenanigans and horrifically heart-stopping makeup effects. Newcomer Meister makes for a fine hero, while Mason is just about perfect as his plucky and caring sidekick. It is Feeney who just about steels the show, however, his deliciously evil turn as the egotistically selfish elder Oldfield snidely perfect in just about every way.

Without question, though, the true stars of Black Sheep are the special effects and makeup wizards over at WETA Workshop. Having already won Oscars for Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, these visual maestros dive whole hog (or is that whole sheep?) into this thing with a crazily gory abandon that’s totally sublime. There is a pit and a cave system here just too gruesome too be believed, horror aficionados of every color and strip sure to remember the scene when Henry and Experience find themselves tumbling face-first into its fleshy oblivion.

Still, I can’t say this is something I’m going to be crowing about come the end of the year. For all the inspiration behind the effects and the inherent audaciously cute silliness of making the central monsters sheep there isn’t anything fans of Jackson, John Carpenter, Joe Dante or John Landis haven’t seen before. But for the time I was in the theater I did have a good time, and in the case of Black Sheep that’s more than enough tasty mutton to warrant a mint sauce recommendation. 

Film Rating:  êê1/2  (out of 4)

Additional Links:

- Interview with Black Sheep actor Nathan Meister by Sara Michelle Fetters