Dvd
Black Sheep
The tagline reads: "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand… and they're pissed off!"
On a remote sheep farm a genetic experiment goes horribly wrong. The result is a comic-horror in the same bloody vein as Peter Jackson's early work. Essentially a zombie movie with sheep.
Starring Matthew Chamberlain, Tammy Davis, Oliver Driver, Tandi Wright
Directed by Jonathan King (feature debut)
Written by Jonathan King
Horror, Comedy | 1hr 27mins | Rated (R13) | contains violence, horror scenes & offensive language | Origin: New Zealand | Official Site »
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The Talk
25 votes / 3 comments
Flicks review
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'Black Sheep' is a decent comedy-horror, but unfortunately is also one that fails to scare even once. In the whole running time there was not one split second which had me in suspense, not one single moment which made me jump in my seat. Instead, we get a lot of mildly amusing sheep gags, and a whole lot of bloody effects courtesy of Weta Workshop (which, admittedly, are impressive).
3
The premise is that a sheep-phobic city-dweller returns to his late father's farm to find his older brother conducting genetic experiments on his ovine stock. What results is a zombie-like tale of killer sheep (it becomes a little bit more interesting than that but I won't spoil it for you).
The acting is a mixed bag. There's a female hippy character called Experience. I think the ironic joke here is that she lacks life-experience, but I'm wondering about acting experience too. Then there's the lead, Matthew Chamberlain, but he's equally bland and uninspiring. Oliver Driver provides the over-the-top comic relief – he's not bad. Then there's Peter Feeney (you'll recognize him from several ads on TV) who is interesting to watch, and suits the role of sneering villainous bad guy perfectly.
Victoria Kelly's musical score is suitably grand and underscores the action well… until you realise that there's hardly a moment without music. It's always there, always sweeping, always pounding. It's as if every onscreen moment should be packed with suspense and emotion. Only it isn't. And the music starts to seem hopelessly redundant as it works so hard to create some kind of excitement which isn't there.
Peter Jackson seems to be a huge influence on this film. It's as if director Jonathan King has never watched anything other than Jackson's back-catalogue. Frantic wide-angle close-ups and ears being stretched/ripped off are the menu du jour.
If you haven't been put off already, please note that the climax of the film is a fart gag.
'Black Sheep' is a great attempt at a comedy-horror, but ends up being just a mildly funny extended joke that just isn't scary. It's not really a parable either, so there are no 'Animal Farm'-type deeper levels to be found here. It's decent but childish.
[Reviewed by Andrew Hedley, a good if churlish man]SHARE:
The people's reviews
12 reviews
Press Reviews
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Efilmcritic.com
4
Pretty impressive work from a first-time filmmaker who aimed for equal portions of broad humor and gore galore -- and nailed both genres right on the mutton.
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NZ Herald [Russell Baillie]
4
Surely it's a sign of national maturity to have us telling sheep jokes against ourselves and selling them to the world. Black Sheep won't be to everyone's bad taste. But it's got plenty of it to keep us chuckling until that next Sunday roast...
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Sunday Star-Times [Aaron Yap]
2
Black Sheep is slick schlock that might entertain if you haven't seen a horror film since the 80s. It feels like the overly manufactured product of giving a hack a million dollars, a Cinemascope lens, an army of Weta workshop drones, a producer with a keen sense of generating international box office mojo via New Zealand's currently bankable genre filmmaking, and churning out something that looks vaguely like a cult item worthy of festival market interest. It's certainly no Death Warmed Up or Bad Taste -file it somewhere next to the blandness of The Locals...
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The Press [Christchurch]
2
1/2 So full of animal-flatulence jokes that you can almost smell it, Black Sheep has never found a farming joke it didn't find incredibly amusing. Sheep shagging farmers? The plot practically hinges on it...
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Fred
This is the coolest movie ever I wish so much they would make a sequel!!!!
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