As a movie originating from the same country as splatter maestro turned Hollywood director Peter Jackson it's really no surprise that Jonathan King's Black Sheep feels like it's trying very hard to emulate Jackson's earlier works such as Dead Alive and Bad Taste. It has the same goofy kind of tone around it, slings a good handful of gore at the screen (the best moments come during an assault on a business party that includes the bottom of a face being ripped-off, severed limbs, and guts everywhere), and it never once takes itself seriously. Then why is it that when all was said and done I still felt like something was missing?

Fifteen years after his father has died in a sheep herding accident, Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home at the recommendation of his therapist to not only get over his irrational fear of sheep but also to try and settle things with his big brother Angus (Peter Feeney). Seems that Angus is looking to use his research in genetics to create a new breed of our woolly friends but he needs to try and buy out Henry's share of the farm if he really wants the venture to take off.

At the same time we meet environmentalist, hippie type Experience (Danielle Mason) who, along with her cohort Grant (Oliver Driver) ends up stealing a canister of waste material from Angus' lab. Upon being chased by a group of scientists Grant ends-up accidentally smashing the stolen goods which unleashes a mutant baby sheep that proceeds to chew on his face before heading off to the nearby fields to start infecting all the other sheep hanging about.

From there King's script becomes a straight-forward tongue-in-cheek monster movie as our newly infected herd begins randomly attacking people around the farm with Henry, his farmhand friend Tucker (Tammy Davis), and Experience caught in the middle. They have to try and keep a step ahead of the bloodthirsty beasts as well as deal with the fact that all of Angus' genetic dickery has caused humans who are bitten to mutate themselves into two-legged, giant sheep (think shades of An American Werewolf In London for not only how these creatures look but also for their transformation scenes).

It all leads up to a mostly under whelming finale that might trot out a fair share of bloodshed, one pretty hilarious moment where Henry throws some mint sauce on one of the mutated beasties and it smokes like when a vampire is splashed with holy water, and a plane propeller that's put to good use, but it also contains a send-off of the main baddie that plays into the constant scatological humour displayed too much earlier in the film as well as having a groaner of a set-up for a sequel.

This isn't to say that there's not a good bit of stuff to be pleased with within Black Sheep. It's definitely a unique little monster movie as it plays off the fact that New Zealand's prime industry is sheep herding and there's something to be said of the comedic worth of seeing a ravenous sheep perched behind the wheel of a pick-up truck after our heroes jump off and ask, "who's driving the truck?". It also, much to my delight as an old school horror fan, relies mostly on practical effects (supplied by Jackson's Weta Workshop) to give the proceedings a decidedly 80's throwback feel - bless those mechanical sheep as they made me smile more than any CG effect could have.

On top of this, King and his cast seem to have been enjoying themselves during filming and it translates to the screen as all of the cast bring a serious-yet-not attitude to their performances. Meister is the straight man to Feeney and Davis' mostly unrestrained turns while Mason is certainly cute enough (and does the "new age"-y thing well enough) to be engaging.

So, to sum up, Black Sheep contains some wittiness, good effects, and solid acting and will likely offer enough entertainment for a lazy evening, but it still doesn't reach the heights of outrageousness that Jackson's early work did and could've benefited from going more over-the-top than it already is (and perhaps cutting out all the frigging fart jokes).

Review based on unrated version. (Chris Hartley, 10/4/07)

Directed By: Jonathan King.
Written By: Jonathan King.

Starring: Nathan Meister, Danielle Mason, Peter Feeney, Tammy Davis.

Picture Ratio: 1.85:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: For some reason the transfer here is really nothing special at all. I'm not sure if it has to do with how the movie was filmed but the picture here suffers from a whole lot of jagged edges as well as containing a handful of compression blips and fuzzy moments. It's acceptable, but it's also passable.

Extras: As with Dimension Extreme first horror offering, Broken, there's a decent handful of extras here with only one bonus feature really being a complete waste of time.

We get a trailer (and it's "Get ready for the violence of the lambs" line), a brief blooper reel, a scene entitled "Early Morning" that's exclusive to the DVD and the "waste of time" I mentioned above, a thirty-one-minute making of featurette that's quite watchable and gives you some interesting background on New Zealand and why the movie was a perfect match to the country, five deleted scenes with optional commentary that were wisely hacked from the final product, and (to round things out) a commentary track with King and Meister that makes for an alright little listen.