Metal Movies: Black Sheep

A recent guest post I did on No Clean Singing reminded me of a favorite NZ film I haven’t yet reviewed for you all: Black Sheep.

As you may or may not be aware, New Zealanders are rather proud of our sheep. We love to raise them, eat them, shave their fleece for winter jammies … and many an urban legend has sprung up regarding some of the other things we like to do to them. New Zealand’s sheep reputation is so widespread it actually remains one of the few facts outsiders know about our country. “Oh yeah, New Zealand. Full of sheep.”

When I was fifteen, I met a some teens in England who seriously, for real thought that sheep just ran wild around the streets, like a pest, and we all had guns and it was legal to shoot them. (They also thought Maori’s lived in grass huts, which I suppose some of them do).

A local lad by the name of Jonathan King (son of historian Michael King, not to be confused with comedian Mike King) decided to make a comedy-horror film (is there any other kind) about evil, genetically-modified sheep. So he did. And here is my review:

Get Ready for the Violence of the Lambs!

Port O’Call: Black Sheep, filmed in New Zealand in 2007.

Mateys: Directed by Jonathan King, and starring a few NZ actors you never would have heard of, including Tammy Davis, the dude who played Munter on Outrageous Fortune.

Premise: Our hero, Henry, is taking a taxi from the city to his family farm to meet his brother Angus. A traumatic childhood experience, where Angus killed his pet sheep and then dressed himself in its skin and chased Henry around the farm, only to be stopped by the housekeeper, Mrs. Mac, telling them their father has died, has left Henry rather terrified of sheep. He drives to the farmhouse, where Angus is busy practising for the press unveiling of his new breed of sheep – the Oldfield. Angus offers him 2 million dollars to buy his share of the farm. Heny signs, and is about to leave when the housekeeper, old Mrs. Mac, tells him to go up the back of the farm with Tucker, the farmhand, to get some peace over his father’s death. So he does.

Meanwhile, two animal rights activists, Grant and Experience (who is of course a hot, self-righteous blonde), sneak onto the property to collect evidence of Angus’ cruel animal laboratory. Grant, who is a bit of a dimwit, steals a container of waste and runs off. He drops the container, it opens and a demon sheep foetus jumps out and bites him.

On the way up the back of the farm, Henry and Tucker’s ute is intercepted by a sheep with a bite on it’s nose. Experience sneaks up on them, grabs the rifle from the cab, and demands to know where Grant has got to. After making some jokes about her name, they let her climb in and go looking for Grant, only to be distracted by a burning shed. When they go to investigate, they’re attacked by a killer sheep.

Meanwhile, Grant is in the forest, developing a strange, very un-hippiesh taste for meat. He grabs and devours a fluffy bunny rabbit. Awwwww.

And then … it all goes bad for Henry, Grant and Experience … very, very baaaaa-ad.

Why it’s Krieg: You mean, aside from the genetically-modified sheep?

The special effects were handled by our very own WETA workshops, who did an admirable job of producing, among other things, a demonic lamb that reminds a NZ-film connisseur strongly of the demonic monkey in Peter Jackson’s second film, Braindead. But for the horror junkie, there’s lots to appreciate, from the sheep torture chamber at the laboratory to the gory massacre scenes to the humans growing sheep appendages.

A few little bits of trivia. Just before the farmhand is killed, he’s seen reading “A Penguin History of New Zealand” written by none other than Dr. Michael King, the directors father.

Also, Jonathan King appears in a later scene where he is trying to find the keys to his car when he is pulled down and mercilessly slaughtered by a sheep.

Why it’s emo: It’s not going to impress any girls, it’s not going to change the world, and if you’re not a New Zealander, you will probably miss a few jokes. But aside from those minor points, I really can’t find much to dislike about Black Sheep (my opinion, of course, being wholy biased by my love of b-grade horror and my status as probably the worst film critic of all time).

Quote:

Experience: “You’re a Tree.”
Henry: “I’m NOT a tree. I’m a fucking sheep.”

Tucker: “If it wasn’t for my gumboot!”

Henry: What’s that?
Experience: Geranium: aromatherapy for uplift and hormonal balance.
Henry: Do your hormones really need balancing?
Experience: Considering I’ve been attacked by genetically-engineered monsters, jumped off a moving vehicle, been chased across a paddock, dragged into a torture chamber, pulled into a mountain of rotting flesh–yes, my hormones need fucking balancing

Rating: \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ \m/ five horns for all the sheep jokes.