Harry Olfield's calm and ordinary childhood as the son of a sheep farmer was met with tragedy when his father died in a freak accident. Fifteen years, and numerous sheep-phobia sessions later, Harry has returned to the family farm. But things have changed back home while he has been away. His greedy and selfish brother, Angus, is now running the show and is looking to buy Harry out.
But Harry soon finds out that Angus has more in mind than just simple, old fashioned sheep farming. Angus has found a more profitable business model; genetic engineering. Using human DNA he has created what he believes will be a superior sheep. But when animal rights activists accidentally unleash a mutant sheep foetus into the wild serious trouble starts to brew.
When I first started watching Black Sheep I was pretty sure it was going to be awfully baaad. Then it turned out not the be so baaad after all. Baaad. But seriously... Black Sheep is a slapstick gore-fest in the tradition of Peter Jackson's similarly New Zealand-esque splatter films; Bad Taste, and Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead). It comes off as pretty stupid at first glance. That's because it is. I mean, it IS a movie about rampaging sheep after all. At the same time, it's redeeming factors are in the fact that it is funny, it has something to say (kind of), and it successfully piles on the nasty gore and a couple of jumps for good measure.
The message of the movie seems clearly to be that genetically modifying animals and food is probably a poor idea. Fair enough. It hammers this point home with buckets of fake blood, vicious zombie livestock, and mutant sheep-people. On the other hand, it also takes the piss out of environmentalists and animal rights activists by unfairly depicting them all as irresponsible, obnoxious, hippies.
Unfortunately this almost obliterates the effectiveness of the films message by refusing to actually take a side on the types of actions that the film insinuates criticism of and depicting those who work against such actions in a negative and unbalanced light. Granted, this is largely for comedic effect and it is somewhat successful on that score. But as a result of all this Harry and his mother might be the only two characters in the film who are not thoroughly nauseating.
As mentioned previously, Black Sheep is not shy about the gore. It may not be as out there as some of the other "Dimension Extreme" films (the Feast trilogy comes to mind), it still has its fair share. This includes violence against humans as well as sheep, and creatures that are somewhere in between. Naturally animal abuse isn't cool and is generally looked down upon these days, so the violence against sheep is campy enough to ensure the viewer that it's not real. In fact, real sheep and what appear to be animatronic sheep are both used throughout the film at different times.
There's nothing to do in a movie about carnivorous mutant sheep that embrace the ridiculousness of the concept and run with it. That's exactly what Black Sheep does, and on that score it is an amusing and grisly success.
3 shears out of 5
Rated R for adult content, nudity, graphic language, graphic violence.
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