Black Sheep

By: Martyn Pedler
Date: 20th Aug 07
Format: Cinema
Mood: Make a therapy appointment now

What:
Black Sheep

Where:
Dendy Kino, Hoyts Melbourne Central

When:
Opens Aug 16

Watch the trailer:
here

New Zealand. Killer sheep. The genius of this kind of high-concept is that it lets the poster alone tell you everything you need to know about Black Sheep. (Of course, it all falls apart if there’s only emptiness sitting behind the high concept. Last year, all we wanted were snakes. Snakes on a plane. How could we have been so disappointed?)

First-time director Jonathan King borrows from masters like Sam Raimi and John Landis for this horror/comedy and such love shines through the special effects: old-school Rick Baker-style transformations remind you how much better prosthetics, rubber, and slime are than any computer-generated effect. Besides, sheep do have that unsettling, alien quality to their eyes…

Surely, though, while the latex was setting, someone could have written some gags that didn’t have whiskers on them. (Hippies have funny names! They talk about feng shui! Oh, how your sides will split.) There is a laid-back, pastoral charm to some of the sheep jokes, but there’s also something disheartening about a cult film constantly shooting for the lowest common denominator. Black Sheep didn't have to be this toothless.