★ 7 / 10
Ovinaphobia in Wairarapa! Black Sheep, written and directed
John Chard
Ovinaphobia in Wairarapa! Black Sheep, written and directed by Jonathan King is a wonderfully kooky horror comedy filmed out of New Zealand. Premise is simple…
Ovinaphobia in Wairarapa!
Black Sheep, written and directed by Jonathan King is a wonderfully kooky horror comedy filmed out of New Zealand. Premise is simple, genetic tampering by unstable farmer man-child type has produced psychotic zombie sheep who like to chow down on human flesh. If you are "lucky" to still be alive after being bitten, you turn into a human/sheep hybrid - who likes to chow down on human flesh! All inhabitants of this island are doomed unless three spunky young heroes in waiting can overcome monumental odds and save the day!
With effects done by Weta being no bad thing, Black Sheep is a whole bunch of popcorn munching fun. Many of the jokes aren't really surprising but they hit the mark because the comedy is drawn nice and broad. It helps as well that much of it carries a sense of mischievous depravity about it, while the snarky asides to scientists and tree hugging environmentalists shows King to have a semblance of world awareness about him. The cinematography (Richard Bluck) is gorgeous, capturing the magnificent landscapes as a backdrop to the ovine carnage, and Victoria Kelly's musical score is jovial supreme.
Nothing earth shattering here, so those horror/comedy fans who venture in for the first time expecting otherwise will be disappointed. However, at under 90 minutes in length King's movie never once sags in pace or gasp for new comedic air. It's a short sharp shocker of a rib tickler and well worthy of a look if in the requisite mood. 7/10
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★ 8 / 10
"Shear" Terror....
cchase
At first blush, it reads like an SNL skit that the writers decided not to use at the last minute. Murderous genetically-altered sheep on a rampage? Even Roger…
At first blush, it reads like an SNL skit that the writers decided not to use at the last minute. Murderous genetically-altered sheep on a rampage? Even Roger Corman never went there, and maybe it was for a reason...
And that reason was because writer/director Jonathan King needed to claim this baby for his own, and he has made the most of the opportunity. "Black Sheep" has that same kooky, OTT vibe of the mad scientist/monster flicks of the Fifties and Sixties with a more post-modern sensibility, much in the same affectionately twisted tone adapted by similar movies like "Tremors", "Feast", "Slither", the often-mentioned "Shaun of the Dead", and the film that this will be most compared to (and rightly so) - "Dead-Alive", the splat-tastic horror/comedy opus created by fellow Kiwi filmmaker gone "big time", Peter Jackson.
The plot is classic creepfest kitsch with a New Zealand transplant. Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister) has been terrified of sheep for most of his life, the result of a horrific prank played on him in childhood by his crippled, bitter brother, Angus (Peter Feeney). Fifteen years later, Henry has gone back Down Under to tend to unfinished business - meaning facing his fears and selling off his half of the family sheep farm to his brother.
Meantime, Angus has concentrated on increasing the fortunes and finances of the family business by turning it over to a disgraced geneticist (Tandi Wright) for whom the farm has become one big test tube. Hippie activists Experience (Danielle Mason) and her sometime boyfriend, Grant (Oliver Driver) are out to expose Angus's subsidized experiments for the crimes against nature and ecology that they are. But as well-intended as their efforts are, everyone knows how true the old saying is about the best-laid plans...
Not surprisingly, the success of the entire film lies in the engaging cast, the goofy-yet-solid script, the beautiful cinematography, but most of all in the practical on-set and visual effects provided by Peter Jackson's own WETA Workshop and WETA Digital companies. And all quarters deliver fabulously, resulting in a great, loopy time at the movies that will have you giggling, gasping or gagging, sometimes all three simultaneously.
With the right frame of mind, I think that most horror fans or just casual viewers who like the occasional off-beat entertainment should find something to like here. Everyone else can just revisit the Merchant-Ivory section of the video store and steer clear.
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Is it as funny as Zombeavers?