Black Sheep (2006)

3 / 5
Tagline: Get ready for the violence of the Lambs!
Directed By: Jonathan King
Written By: Jonathan King
Actors Include: Matthew Chamberlain, Nick Fenton, Sam Clarke
Genre: Horror, Comedy
Length: 87 minutes
Banned: nope
Country: New Zealand

Review:
A couple of girls I work with saw this film at the Toronto Film Festival and came back telling me that this is a movie that I really would enjoy. Well in many ways they are right, the idea of killer sheep is pretty fantastic, and they did a surprisingly good job with the effects. What didn't work is that this is pretty much a one-trick pony idea and most of the film ranged from silly to stupid. The good parts are where they have simply taken scenes from other films and acted them out in this one. It's one thing to do a homage, but really "Return Of The Living Dead" and any Peter Jackson horror film are so much better than this could hope to be. The actual story is about brothers who don't really get along. One of them is a scientist type who is genetically engineering sheep into zombie like creatures with a lust for blood. The other is our hero who is trying to stop his brother and the rabid sheep. The scenery is beautiful (it's New Zealand) and it's shot rather like a Peter Jackson film as well (go figure) but somehow it manages to come up short because it's almost like they tried too hard. Yeah okay that sounds ridiculous, trying too hard but seriously they were throwing everything at us they could and it just made it unfunny rather than hysterical and again I've seen this all before (just not with sheep I suppose). Still this is a sort of party movie that if you don't like to think and you just want to watch ravenous sheep attack (and they simply don't attack enough either) then I'd say proceed. There is some gore most definitely, but this is anything but scary...or funny most of the time, just sort of "alright....". This just had such promise and a good premise and I'm sure some will be delighted, but I hoped for more.