Tribeca 2007: Black Sheep

Black Sheep is the debut feature from writer/director Johnathan King, who follows in the footsteps of filmmaker Peter Jackson with a gory, laugh out loud splatter comedy about a murderous flock of genetically engineered sheep that calls to mind that calls to mind the classic New Zealand horror comedies Bad Taste and Braindead.

Nerve-racked IT tech Henry returns home to visit the sheep farm he grew up on – and has been away from since the accidental death of his father, 15 years earlier. Bringing with him a breakdown-inducing phobia of sheep (the residual effect of a sick, cruel childhood prank played on him by his older brother Angus), he’s come back on the advice of his therapist, to face his fear, and to sell his brother his share of the farm. Henry’s worst nightmare comes true when two animal rights activists gain access to a lab where, under Angus’s supervision and funding, sheep have been the subjects of bizarre gene-splicing experiments, and accidentally set loose a herd of bloodthirsty, man-eating sheep.

Sound kind of ridiculous? It is, but that’s the point. This is a splatter-comedy after all, not a serious horror film. Splatter-comedy, or ‘splatstick,’ uses the gallons of blood and elaborate gore FX that are traditionally used to scare and audience, and instead plays it for laughs, and Black Sheep is packed with grotesque effects work and hilarious moments. There is something that is simply innately funny about fluffy docile animals assuming the role of bloodthirsty killers (see Night of the Lepus, a 1972 b-grade horror film about a stampeding pack of giant killer bunny rabbits). Watching dogs tear people limb from limb is terrifying, but watching sheep do it, hysterical.

And speaking of limb from limb, the gore and makeup work is spectacular, and all done practically, with little or no CGI polishing. Even the bigger budget scenes, like car crashes or explosions, were built by matching shots instead of rendering images, giving the whole experience a kind of homemade feel that was so prevalent in classics like Evil Dead, and has become somewhat of a rarity in modern horror.

King packs Black Sheep’s running time with basic gags like a sheep’s bite transforming a victim into a werewolf-like sheep/human hybrid or sheep being incinerated with their own flatulence, but also throws plenty of character quirks and clever dialogue into the mix. My favorite character is one of the animal rights activists, a sexy hippie girl named Experience. Upon meeting Henry, she tells him, “You’re chi is in shambles.” After leaping from a moving truck as it goes off a cliff, she remarks about the “beautiful view.” To calm herself down while trudging through a cave, knee-deep in gore, she lights and aroma therapy candle. King manages to parody the eco-friendly mentality by setting it in a high stress situation, and simultaneously parody the one-dimensionality of characters that is often found in b-horror films. King also deserves credit for pushing the boundaries of good taste in the film’s third act – just when you think you’ve seen it all, he shows you more, and takes the humor to another level of twisted. This is sure to delight fans of b-movies it imitates and anyone with a warped sense of humor.