New Zealand was the country that made Peter Jackson's BRAINDEAD back in 1992. That film still stands strong as the goriest movie ever made, a near-perfect mix of gross-out humour, Kiwi insanity and copious bloodshed. When I saw that BLACK SHEEP, a similarly-themed film about genetically engineered sheep with an appetite for human flesh, was another Kiwi horror comedy, I was hoping it might reach near the standard of Jackson's work. Instead I found a film that simply ripped off that earlier, better movie – along with lots of other stuff like SHAUN OF THE DEAD. This is derivative film-making at its worst, totally lacking in any kind of inspiration and always striving to aim for the lowest common denominator.
As the film begins with an unexplained incident – a kid kills and skins a sheep, wearing its bloody fleece to scare his little brother – you know that not much intelligence has gone into the script. Despite some typically pleasant New Zealand backdrops, the small scale antics that play out are utterly familiar and therefore pretty dull. Nobody in the unknown cast makes any kind of impression, and I was just waiting for a touch of originality or inspiration to come along and make me entertained. It never happened.
The sheep bite people, transmitting a kind of virus that turns humans into rubbery sheep monsters. There's a last-reel attack by a flock of sheep full of cheesy gore effects with severed limbs and guts-aplenty, once again heavily indebted to BRAINDEAD. There's even a mutant lamb not too dissimilar from the Sumerian rat monster in the Jackson movie. The final solution to tackle the menace is about as lowbrow and unfunny as you can get, and never once did the film manage to raise itself from the doldrums. A below-par script, uninteresting performances (Danielle Mason is pretty but bland), laboured effects – from Weta workshop, the team who worked on LORD OF THE RINGS no less – and an overruling predictability make this one to miss.
As the film begins with an unexplained incident – a kid kills and skins a sheep, wearing its bloody fleece to scare his little brother – you know that not much intelligence has gone into the script. Despite some typically pleasant New Zealand backdrops, the small scale antics that play out are utterly familiar and therefore pretty dull. Nobody in the unknown cast makes any kind of impression, and I was just waiting for a touch of originality or inspiration to come along and make me entertained. It never happened.
The sheep bite people, transmitting a kind of virus that turns humans into rubbery sheep monsters. There's a last-reel attack by a flock of sheep full of cheesy gore effects with severed limbs and guts-aplenty, once again heavily indebted to BRAINDEAD. There's even a mutant lamb not too dissimilar from the Sumerian rat monster in the Jackson movie. The final solution to tackle the menace is about as lowbrow and unfunny as you can get, and never once did the film manage to raise itself from the doldrums. A below-par script, uninteresting performances (Danielle Mason is pretty but bland), laboured effects – from Weta workshop, the team who worked on LORD OF THE RINGS no less – and an overruling predictability make this one to miss.