[Black Sheep]
Plot:An experiment in genetic engineering turns harmless sheep into blood-thirsty killers that terrorize a sprawling New Zealand farm.

Cast: Nathan Meister, Danielle Mason, Peter Feeney, Tammy Davis, Glenis Levestam, Tandi Wright, Oliver Driver, Matthew Chamberlain, Nick Fenton, Sam Clarke, Eli Kent, Nick Blake, Richard Chapman, Louis Sutherland, Ian Harcourt.

My Thoughts:Silly, clever, but not altogether perfect.

Review:When someone makes a film about genetically altered sheep, one doesn't know what one's gonna get. Jonathan King's "Black Sheep" is a good film, but in the end it's far from great....mostly because it's the tale of three halves. The film follows a man named Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister), who has a severe phobia of sheep that he's had ever since he was a kid. Now all grown up, the phobia is still there, and with good reason too. As once he returns home to New Zealand, he is greeted by his brother Angus Oldfield (Peter Feeney), who has given up on the conventional ways of farming and has gone corporate, with genetic experimentation...on sheep. Of course this is all kept secret from his brother Henry, but when two animal rights types, Experience (Danielle Mason), and her partner in crime Grant (Oliver Driver) free one of the genetically altered sheep from captivity, the secret quickly gets out..as the mutant mammal bites one of the regular sheep and before you know it vicious, carnivorous, flesh-craving, mutant sheep are crawling all over the place, eating anything and anyone then can find!

"Black Sheep" is one of those movies that can go either way, but the truth is it starts off with alot of potential and some strong horror and comedy elements. The blood and gore are certainly present, but as everyone knows that does not a good horror film make...most of the time. While Director/Writer Jonathan King gets it right from the horror standpoint, adding in all the necessary elements to make a cheesy, screwing-around-with-nature-has-dire-consequences horror film...the films comedic bits are surprisingly enough what weigh it down. While some elements of the comedy in the movie work, such as people who are bitten by the evil sheep becoming mutant sheep/human hybrid creatures..alot of the other comedic bits are quite juvenile and really don't work very well, especially because they're overused and used at the wrong time.

Fart jokes aren't funny anymore for the most part in american cinema, but obviously New Zealand cinema is a few years behind us in current film trends, and obviously King is still under the impression that they're comedic gold. They may be in other films, but not in this particular movie. "Black Sheep" does offer up some great fx work though, with the monster sheep and the mutated sheep/humans. Looking at the creatures in this film, and how well done they are without using CGI....you almost wish alot of people in Hollywood would see this film just to they could get the message that CGI isn't always "the way to go". Other than the killer sheep, this picture offers up villains which fit right in with the films overall story such as Henry's insanely capitalistic and money driven brother Angus, and an unethical group of genetic engineering types.

King also manages to work these flesh and blood bad guys into the thick of things during the course of the film which along with the deadly sheep, set up a pretty formidable obstacle for Henry and the other good guys to overcome in order to save New Zealand from the outbreak. The movies biggest problems come during the middle though, when after all of the films finest comedic bits (such as a sheep being put behind the wheel of a truck) have been used up in the first half of the movie, the middle of the film begins to get very repetitive and slowly descends downhill before the final act which doesn't live up to it's full potential at all and is ruined by the juvenile humor which besides the sheep attacks which are utterly hilarious, everything else comes off as annoying and boring instead of sharp and witty.

The dialogue in the picture also begins to take a turn for the worse as the film moves on through each act, and this is the reason why despite it's sharp first 25 minutes or so, "Black Sheep" still winds up being simply a good movie..in the sense that it adds something new to the genre but at the same time it still doesn't make use of everything it has at it's disposal. "Black Sheep" is a good film in some ways, and a bad films in many others. It's worth seeing but maybe not at full price.

Positives:Great creature fx work on the killer sheep. An interesting story.

Negatives:Flat and repetitive comedic bits, bad dialogue throughout a large majority of the picture, acts 2 and 3 are disappointing.

Overall:A film with potential which lives up to about 60% of it.





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