Black Sheep

Greetings Sporefans. This week I'm doing an extra special review. That's right, for the first time ever I'm going to review a movie that I thought was great before I saw it, and was actually good. Now, lets keep in mind that my standards for "great" are a bit skewed, but in my humble opinion, this is the movie of the year. This year, skip "Transformers", "Live Free or Die Hard" can die hard at the box office (although I'll pick it up on DVD), and Spiderman can go play with his web shooters. This year's blockbuster sleeper hit is "Black Sheep"!

Get ready for some sheep jokes. Baaaaa-d ones.

Black Sheep is an independent movie produced and shot in beautiful New Zealand. New Zealand, as we all know, is where director Peter Jackson shot the "Lord of the Rings" Trilogy. What many of you may not know is that before the Rings movies, Peter Jackson also directed several horror movies, including "Braindead" or "Dead-Alive", which is a gory zombie movie set in New Zealand. Weta Workshops, the same crew that did the effects for the Lord of the Rings movies also did the effects for this movie. And if you liked Dead-Alive, ewe're going to love this movie.

Get it.... ewe?

.....

Tough crowd here tonight.

Black Sheep is about a man named Henry Oldfield (played by Nathan Meister), an ex-farmer's son who now has an irrational fear of sheep. He returns to the family farm to let his brother, Angus Oldfield (played by Peter Feeney) buy off his half of the family farm. Little does Henry know that Angus has been conducting genetic experiments on sheep over the last few years, and has created a new type of sheep... with a taste for blood!
















The new face of fear!


If killer sheep weren't enough to sell you on this movie, whenever a human is bitten by a sheep and survives the encounter, they begin to change into a sheep person. These "Sheeple" or "Were-sheep" also crave the flesh of non-sheep creatures, and are frequently depicted as torn between their remaining humanity and the growing woolly beast that lurks inside... well mostly outside actually...

OK. Lets skip the inner turmoil and over analysing this week. They're killer were-sheep that walk on hind legs and eat people. How can you top that? No need to get bogged down with sub-themes, "Black Sheep" is a simple, good, gory movie about killer sheep.

This movie is chock full of great scenes. Writer/Director Johnathan King took great advantage of the rolling countryside of New Zealand and one of the best shots in the movie was a flock of killer sheep sweeping down a hill to descend upon a "flock" of unwitting investors. The main characters watch as the woolly terror unleashes its furry fury upon crowed of woolen-clad investors in a storm of senseless gore and violence.










Noooo! My new suit!


I don't want to spoil too much, but, the sheep's ultimate demise is related to an article I commented on over at SuperMegaMonkey. If you're interested in a bit of a spoiler, click here for the article (and my commentary of course).

That's it for this week Sporefans. If this movie is playing in a theater near you, go see it. If not, you may be able to order it on On-Demand if your cable provider has the Sundance Channel or IFC. But whether you get a "flock" of people together to go to the theater or if you stay home and "shear" the experience with some close friends, go see this movie. I promise that "ewe" won't have a baaaa-d time.