El Chupacabra

An entertaining yarn...

Just when you thought there were no other animals that could be turned into godless killing machines, we have a production out of New Zealand that selects the most docile of all God's creatures and makes them thirst for blood. For this reason alone, we decided to check out Black Sheep. Heck, a horror movie about killer sheep, how could we pass it up? This was something we had to see.

New Zealand is known for it's sheep population. In fact, for every New Zealander there are 16 sheep roaming the island. That makes for bad odds if the sheep decide to throw off the yoke of obedience and give old farmer Angus a hoof to the nuts. When Henry returns to the family farm after living as a meek city slicker, Angus, his older brother who took over the family farm after their father's death, buys Henry's share of the business. But before Henry can leave, two animal rights activists steal a beaker containing a genetically altered sheep fetus. While trying to escape, the beaker breaks and the fetus spreads an infection that turns humans into half-human, half-sheep minotaurs, and sheep into really, really angry sheep.

All together, quite a novel and fun premise and with a very distinct local flavor. It must have been a hit in New Zealand! For good measure, Henry is cursed with a fear of sheep after his brother jumped out at him wearing a bloody sheep carcass when they were both children. Without going into what young New Zealand boys consider clean, wholesome fun, it presents us with the protagonists Achilles heal.

Black Sheep delivers what you might expect from a feature length movie about killer sheep. It is humorous at times and yet, the producers deal with their subject with such seriousness that it sometimes gave me conflicting feelings. On the one hand, killer sheep are a clear attempt at being cheeky and yet, on the other hand, the producers want you to be genuinely scared of these fluffy white balls of death. This left me with a uneasy feeling that maybe they were taking it all a bit too seriously, I mean, the movie is about sheep that kill, right? Then again, I can't say I don't appreciate their efforts at making a movie that avoided being overly goofy or cheesy. The producers also went to great lengths in the gore department in order give a visceral lesson on what a half-chewed human spleen looks like.

The finale involves a mass of sheep running amok amongst a crowd of business people gathered for the unveiling of Angus' new super-sheep, the very reason behind the genetic research into human-sheep hybrids. This scene is a big payoff to the viewer and is followed soon after by two separate scenes both involving sheep-on-human sex acts. I'll let you try and pick them out, but they definitely made us smile/dry heave, especially in slow motion. In fact, there are enough couched references to sheep sex to keep even the most die-hard fans of sheep-spooning satisfied, but I don't see it helping the stereotypes of New Zealanders any.

The last item I feel is worth mentioning is the creature effects. Rather than rely on bargain computer animation, the makers opted for make-up, fur, and latex and I think it resulted in a much better end product. It contributed to more of that strangeness I was feeling; "if killer sheep are too ridiculous to be scary, then why is this movie trying to scare me?"  In the end, what matters is that I enjoyed this movie. Their were points in the movie where I could sense the effort of creating some ominous suspense. These were usually broken up by sheep driving pickup trucks of cliffs or busting their soft, fluffy heads through bedroom doors. When I think about it, I can't really complain about either approach even though at times they were at odds.

Killer sheep my man, killer sheep...