User reviews

After reading an extremely negative review of this, which COMPLETELY missed the point, I thought I'd write a far more 'accurate' review. In my opinion, this is one of the best of this type of horror movie i've seen. It's right up there with Peter Jackson's early work and Evil Dead. All the negative things the other reviewer was saying, the poor dialogue, and acting, the unrealistic effects, were deliberate, after all, the effects were done by highly skilled and trained effects people at WETA Workshops - who of course did Lord of The Rings. It is a horror comedy packed with clichés and subtle allusions, and full of New Zealand humour, which i concede probably doesn't translate well internationally. NZ is primarily a farming nation, we're a huge exporter of lamb, Farming is a huge part of our culture, and this blends that with our history of offbeat, slightly dark, and idiosyncratic cinema. It is a clever, quintessentially kiwi, homage to such previously mentioned horror comedies (or comedic horrors). That's what i like about it, it is a lot cleverer than it looks. I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of the film. If you like Peter Jackson's early stuff, you'll like this. Just don't expect it to be s***-your-pants scary.

I haven't the opportunity to follow many New Zealand movies, besides the recent memory of Sione's Wedding and In My Father's Den, both of which were of different genres, and mighty enjoyable. Written and directed by Jonathan King (who is also writing the Raintree produced movie The Tattooist), Black Sheep takes the well-established genre of zombie movies, and with its fusion of local flavour, presents its own worthy take in giving us the attack of the killer sheep.

Meh!

It's a crazy idea, but heck, I admit it was sheer wicked and twisted fun watching the usually docile (and may I say dumb?) animals turn the tables on us humans, and start going on a berserk rampage to munch on our flesh. Watching them hunt in packs was surreal, and happens to be one of the nightmares of Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister), who develops a phobia of our woolly friends after his brother Angus (Peter Feeney) played a cruel joke on him. The film fast forwards to the adult brothers, where the latter is planning to unveil his new "perfect" Oldfield sheep, and selling off the farm - why need the space when you can genetically engineer them?

Before you say, oh this is yet another movie which warns about the dangers and questions the ethics behind tinkering with genetics, you would probably think again when it made the environmental activists folks look like social outcasts, and totally bumbling, indirectly contributing to the zombie sheep phenomenon. I liked how the problem became two- pronged, in that the sheep became infected of course, and how its bite is now its worst weapon. And I'd bet you'll never look at another sheep, especially the baby ones, in the same light again, ha!

The plot's fairly straightforward to follow, with its villains (the scientists and of course, the raging sheep) and its heroes clearly spelt out - Henry, his farm hand Tucker (Tammy Davis), housekeeper Mrs Mac (Glenis Levestam), and an activist with an interest in Asian fengshui and zen sayings, called, check this out - Experience (Danielle Mason), who together actually form quite a lovable team whom you'll root for to get out of this mess.

With the animatronics and special effects done by Weta Workshop, you can expect some top notch gore, though I thought that despite it being a zombie flick, it lacked copious amounts of blood splatter. Chewing raw flesh may be stomach curling, especially when the details of such dastardly deeds are not spared, and the camera lingers. Transformational scenes were also fun yet eerie to watch, and if you think you've seen the best of these scenes from various werewolf movies, wait till you get a load from this one!

Black Sheep makes no apology to its violence, sexual innuendoes or toilet humour. In fact, it celebrates them, to tragic-comedic effect. However it knew how to rein itself in, and the farting-sheep-shagging jokes never goes into overdrive. The acts of violence too had a fair share left to the imagination, though I thought there probably was some scrimping in expected chase and attack sequences. If you're in for some light entertainment, then Black Sheep is probaaably your wicked choice for the week.

Black sheep is a New Zealand film about a farmer who's been conducting genetic experiments on sheep in a weird breeding programme, when two activists accidentally release some of the radioactive material all hell breaks loose. With effects provided by Peter Jackson's Weta studios this is a daft horror much like his early work 'Braindead' and 'Bad Taste'. There is blood galore, mutant flesh eating sheep, human-ram hybrids and silly jokes and it definitely doesn't take itself too seriously. Packed full of clichés and homage's to other films, look out for the 'American Werewolf in London' take off, it is at times quite funny but ultimately the story is nothing new and only just manages to hold your interest between sheep attacks. If you want a no-brainer and a bit of a laugh and a groan then you will probably like this movie but stay away if you want highbrow because Shakespeare this isn't. They are coming to get ewe so get out the mint sauce.

Black Sheep is the sort of film that will appeal to fans of Pete Jackson's and Sam Raimi's early horror comedies - especially Braindead and Bad Taste (Jackson) and the Evil Dead series (Raimi). Like these low budget 'schlockers' Jonathan King's film is well made and does not take itself seriously. Unlike these films, however, Black Sheep is not very self-consciously low budget. Since the film consistently parodies low-brow, low-budget horror films, the film-makers were able to very nicely exploit the gimmickry of these films without losing any artistry or credibility along the way.

Black Sheep is the story of two brothers from a New Zealand sheep farming family. Henry Oldfield (Meister) is terrified of sheep and has alienated himself from his family estate in order to seek therapy. Angus (Feeney) is a sociopath, sadist and rising provincial politician who loves sheep. Angus, of course, wants to make better sheep. And predictably, has genetic scientists set up in a barn on the estate who are performing grisly and disturbing experiments which somehow result in rabid, homicidal zombie sheep and were-sheep. A couple of macrobiotic eco-warriors are thrown into the mix (a brilliant touch) to round out the cast.

Of course, the plot is the weakest element in this film. But this is completely consistent with the film's mission as a genre and self-parody. The strongest elements are the excellent (though still hilarious) effects and art design by WEDA, directing and editing, the fine cast, fun characters and good script. King directs the film economically (a rarity in this genre) and the final cut wastes not a frame. The film is also very nicely shot - each scene - especially the sheep stampedes - is engaging and nicely paced. Every horror genre cliché is presented at one time or another, and most are exploited mercilessly.

Great film for fans of the genre. Not recommended for others.

This movie tickled my funny bone. Its got that great Kiwi humor, this the huge amounts of swearing, Maori jokes, and Kiwiana icons. Look out for the part with the Watties sauce, and the crazy Asian guy running across the screen.

The actors are pretty good, and Weta workshop must have been in their element with the splatter style film. You get a fright, then laugh because you realise its a psycho sheep. Sheep? C'mon. Some people may never be able to return to the farm again, but me? I have a whole new respect for the woolly guys. Put this move at the top of your must see list!

Maybe this film had some type of humor I couldn't understand, but I found this to be completely disappointing. I've wanted to see this film ever since I watched the trailer, which made me believe it was a lot like Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz, or Severance. I was wrong. I am a HUGE fan of those films, but this one just doesn't live up to what I had in mind. I thought it would have way more comedy than it actually did. I mean, it made me actually laugh maybe 3 times at most. To me, the only really good parts were when they found Angus with the sheep and, of course, the sheep killing all the people at Angus's presentation. This film, in my mind, could've been made so much better. But it wasn't.

When will mankind ever learn? Deranged, over-ambitious scientists have tried to genetically alter pretty much every species of the animal kingdom so far, and it always results in gigantically mutated critters and outrageous massacres. All the better for us bloodthirsty horror freaks, of course, as there's nothing as fun as a good nature-revolting-against-men creature feature! And we never had sheep before! On one hand this is no real surprise, because sheep are probably the least menacing type of animals on the planet and it's a lot easier to scare people with mutated rats or over-sized crocodiles. But on the other hand, sheep played a very important role in one of the most major breakthroughs in the history of science when "Dolly" was the first living being ever to be cloned successfully. The Dolly-experiment gone wrong would have resulted in a crazy sheep-themed horror film already, but we had to wait till now, with Jonathan King's "Black Sheep". All the necessary ingredients to put together a traditional and delightfully clichéd creature-feature are well presented: an isolated location, over-the-top crazy scientists, a genetic experiment that is too imbecile for words, the reluctant anti-hero and – of course – dimwitted animal activists to let things go totally out of control. The New Zealandian film-industry is definitely growing lately (mainly thanks to Peter Jackson) and naturally this is the ideal country to produce a film about sheep, as there are gazillions of them! The two brothers Angus & Henry grew up of the family's farm but drifted apart ever since their beloved father died in a terrible accident. Henry is terrified of sheep ever since and never set foot on the farm again, but now he finally returns to sell Agnus his part of the property. Henry arrives just in time to discover that his brother has been messing with Mother Nature's creation and that he's about to artificially create a new and revolutionary species of sheep. But when an over-enthusiast activist runs off with on of the mutated lambs, all the nearby flocks are soon infected with a virus that turns the calm & woolly animals into a aggressive and carnivore monsters. "Black Sheep" stands for extremely entertaining and undemanding splatter, with loads of black humor that is actually funny and make-up effects that are thankfully accomplished the old-fashioned way! When director Jonathan King introduced this film at the Belgian Horror Festival, he said he didn't want too much CGI to ruin his film and I definitely concur with him. Especially the scene where a bunch of uncontrolled zombie-sheep attacks a gathering of international businessmen is an absolutely terrific homage to vintage cheesy horror, with disembowelment and ripped open throats. "Black Sheep" is a good film, but of course it still could have been a lot better. Some chapters in the script could have used better plotting and dialogs, and particularly the ending was a bit of a letdown. They could have done so much more with the ending, if you ask me! Nevertheless, despite some obvious flaws, "Black Sheep" is a must-see film for every horror fan who doesn't take him/herself too seriously.

Wow, I went to this film on principle because I was told it was about Zombie sheep. If nothing else I thought it would be entertaining but much to my surprise, it wasn't. I have had hoped that New Zealand film was reaching some kind of maturity, but this was like stepping back 15 years only with a little more budget (I said a little) from the film commission to spend on guts.

With a mixture of clichéd and very weak jokes, unconvincing characters, and dialog that was tiresome at best, we are left with a horror comedy, with little horror (blood by itself is not very scary) and less comedy.

The score however is quite good, though a little Danny Elfman, and hopefully can be re used for a dark drama.

A classic example of a film receiving government funding because its viewed as culturally "New Zealand", its basically a New Zealand version of a much over used formula, not done particularly well.

I saw this for the first time in 2007 on a dvd which I own. Revisited it recently with my nephew.

The film has beautiful n serene landscapes juxtaposed by oodles of gore n unpleasant stuff.

The girl named Experience reminded me of a very young Amber Heard.

While revisiting it, the haggis scene reminded me of a dialogue from Prime Cut where Lee Marvin taunts Gene Hackman about offal.

I adore horror films. I love all kinds of horror films....monsters, ghosts, slashers, werewolves...and I'm even open to a good killer sheep film, BUT this isn't it. It seems that the creators of this film just had an idea....and that's all. the script, the acting...everything about this film is so weak and low grade and it thinks it's so funny....maybe to some frat boy wasted on pot. Don't waste your time or your dime. Rent Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead) or An American Werewolf In London instead. I really feel this film was made by a fan of Pater Jackson's early stuff, maybe this guy loves horror like me, but he doesn't have an ounce artistry or imagination...no offense, but stick to working behind the counter at McDonalds Mr Director.

Oh, come ON people, stop ragging on it so bad! It's a horror comedy about KILLER SHEEP for crying out loud! How high-brow do you expect the humor to be?? How could you even think that it's trying to achieve the level of something like LOTR??! You say that they could substitute any animal in for the sheep & get the same cliché situations, but they didn't use just any animal, they used SHEEP, and there's something really hilarious about a 'menacing' medium shot of a sheep standing in a field looking at the camera. :) I just saw it at a midnight IFF screening & it was fun & cheesy, yet I dunno how campy you could call it, because the special fx were pretty amazing - kudos for weta for the animatronic puppets, morphing sequences & really good gross-out gore. Yes, it made the audience groan at some of the baa-a-a-ad jokes, but most of the time we were all laughing hysterically & clapping & cheering at the sheer ridiculousness of it all! I think the vast majority of the audience left the theatre with smiles on their faces & in a good mood! I highly recommend this film for anyone who wants a good laugh & enjoys sheep jokes. I mean, come on, it's not hard to appreciate the silliness of this. Go out & support this movie! I challenge you to sit through it & not laugh!

Coming from Australia I understand that sheep is a major part of life in New Zealand, and know that sheep out number people by a long shot.

With that background knowledge, I thought I caught most of the dry humor movie presented in this movie.

The cinematography is great with many dark in door shots contrasted with the grassy fields of New Zealand. This juxtaposition created great atmospheric contrast and made the darker scenes all the more grim. The movie is visceral not shying away from limbs being torn off, and necks being torn to shreds.The SFX are pretty good for most of the part, but some of the monsters are obviously a man in a suit, and that broke the illusion quite a bit.

The writing is interesting, there are some formula plotting and clichés in this movie,but considering it seems to satirize horror movies they are employed quite well. The characters are very quirky but can be empathized. The humor is very dark using the purity of sheep and turning them into demonic beings from hell itself. However the humor (I thought) was very dry and only people from the oceanic region may understand it.

A good movie that deserves a look if one is bored, and is in a mood for watching over the top gore caused in a very comical manner.

6.6/10

This woolly New Zealand splatter comedy hasn't got quite the same wit and originality as Jackson's Braindead, but in itself, it's a fun ride, no matter whether you love sheep or detest them.

The director finds the right balance between spoofing the genre and taking it seriously, which results in scenes being both mordantly funny and comically repulsive at the same time.

The plot's mere window-dressing to present one hilarious sheep incident after another. And some jokes work wonders in a childish sort of way.

A silly fun movie through and trough.

6 out of 10 were-sheep

I went into Black Sheep expecting something ingenious brilliant, original and downright hilarious. The premise in my eyes said it all, it was a movie about killer sheep. Snakes on a Plane was brilliant in my eyes and I expected Black Sheep to be along those sort of lines. Alas, Black Sheep is not as good as Snakes on a Plane, nor is a fifth as good as Shaun of the Dead like a lot of reviewers have been comparing this movie to. Black Sheep is entertaining, and the novelty of watching sheep's kill people is an amusing one, but unfortunately this is a one joke movie, and the joke gets stretched very thin by the end of its run time. Black Sheep does admittedly make you laugh, and it certainly does not scrimp on the gore, in fact there are scenes in this movie that made me surprised the movie got its 15 rating! Especially a scene involving, ahem, a castration! The humour ranges from some good one liners, emphasise on some because there are some one liners that fall flat on their faces, to some pretty funny slapstick scenes, a sheep driving a car off a cliff did admittedly provide me with the one laugh out loud moment. Unfortunately though the pretty poor acting and little new ideas after the halfway mark just left me a tiny bit bored after a while. Black Sheep is hardly an awful movie, its just a bit of a disappointing one given the actual idea of it, so at the moment Black Sheep remains just a decent idea with a below average movie to back it up. Still its worth seeing if only to see the sheep kill people.

The acting of the movie is one of the very worst things about it. Lead actor, Nathan Meister walks out of the film with his dignity remained intact, mainly because he does a half decent job with diabolical dialogue. His character remains likable and he does have some good moments in the middle part of the film. Unfortunately though his romance, with co-star Danielle Mason is the very weakest part of the movie. The reason why he romance is weak is because Mason is such a terrible actress. There are moments in the beginning of the movie where I just sat in my chair horrified as to why she was even cast! Thankfuly she scrapes average by the end of the film, but the beginning parts with her awful dialogue and leaden performance were still lingering in my mind. Peter Feeney is a pretty unimpressive villain to be honest and his character remains too complicated and unexplained for me to actually think anything of the character. Tammy Davis as Tucker plays a likable character, but poor dialogue and little to do leave his character pretty superfluous by the end of the movie. In fact it says a lot for the cast when the entire cast of sheep are much better than the majority of them, and all they have to do is go baa!

One thing that did surprise me about Black Sheep is the fact it does have a fair amount of atmosphere to it, and I commend the movie for not using jump scares. If the director had decided to make the movie a serious horror movie I still believe it could have worked quite well, there are moments when I found the sheep to be slightly creepier than I wanted to admit. But the director chose the comedy route, which is partly the movies weakness as it just isn't that funny. The first time you see a sheep attack it is pretty funny, the sheep driving a car over a cliff is hilarious, the sheep attacking people is occasionally funny, and the explosive ending is pretty funny as well. But for a movie that is nearly 90 minutes there just aren't that many jokes. In fact once you have laughed at the sheep running at people three times you get pretty bored by the tenth time they do it. Stoylines are also left a bit unexplained. The quite frankly disturbing section at the beginning is left unresolved and why the character did what he did still remains a mystery to me. I also felt the characters had other parts of information told to the audience, leading me to believe it was important information, only for that character to not show up again for half the movie. The were-sheep also start to wear pretty thin after a while as well.

Overall Black Sheep is a just about above average movie that I think should have been a superb movie. The idea remains brilliant and the great gore and occasionally funny scene make the movie worth watching. But this is a highly unmemorable movie with leaden acting and a dodgy script. Unfrtunately this movie has too many baaa-ad moments (what, I had to insert at least one dodgy sheep pun somewhere) for its own good.

I went to see a screening of "Black Sheep" last night at Tribeca and I have to say I was immensely impressed!! The film gets right to the point after a bit of exposition & once it revs up it's engines & hits the gas it really moves!. The subject matter?? Zombie Sheep of course! What did you think it was about eh?? The usual rigamarole about genetic testing with sheep DNA & human DNA & what do you get?? A horde of flesh eating sheep that would tear thru Romero's zombies anywhere...anytime. The performances are top rate & the script and direction are more than satisfactory. Let's get one thing straight here, This film isn't trying to reinvent the wheel, It's just looking to take a ludicrous premise & have a gory good time with it. It does this most efficiently. My only quibble with it is some of the accents took a little bit of time getting used to. You have to kind of pick up the cadence & the rhythm of it. It took a little bit of time for me but I picked it up. Luckily this is the type of film that doesn't need a lot of dialogue to get into. The story is simple and plays very easily on screen. The gore is top notch also. Do not think that they skimp on it...They don't. The blood & viscera fly freely, Along with the limbs. I groaned in disgust more than a few times while watching this movie. All in all, A great time at the movies. As a matter of fact it's the most fun I've had at the movies this year, Supplanting "GrindHouse" which was a blast...But a long blast. "Black Sheep" gets it right & does it in the right amount of time. Go see it...It's a hoot!!

Black Sheep knows that there is little-to-no point in creating rehashes of films such as Alien or The Thing here and now in the early years of the 21st Century; instead, it does something very creative and very appealing with the premise of bloodthirsty beasties roaming around a locale picking off its inhabitants, that is to say, takes it down a route of very funny and very effective comedy about killer sheep on a New Zealand located farm. One's mind darts back to an Irish film from 2003 entitled Isolation, ultimately a vanity project displaying the filmmakers' talents in creating atmosphere and inducing the odd scare; the purest in style over substance but something that no doubt benefited those whom worked on it, from the cinematographer right down to the tea-boys, in that it bulked out of each of their CV's. But that's all of what the film was: a CV-filler; a piece about a disfigured and very angry farmyard based cow-come-calf on the rampage, picking off the hapless inhabitants; all played for grimaces, all played seriously and all feeling very sub-The Thing; post-Alien. There can be little doubt Black Sheep helmer Jonathan King additionally grew up on such films; here, King grants the premise a refreshing upstart in several departments: from the often wondrous comedic element, dry in its overall tone, right the way down to the fact every one's tongue is of a Kiwi origin. In every sense of the term, it is the film Isolation should've been; and if it is compared to 2004's Shaun of the Dead, then it is because said film did precisely this with the zombie sub-genre. Such a comparison is merited.

The film begins with an act of violence involving a human being and a sheep, the first and most certainly not the last as two young boys occupy their father's sheep farm. The youngest of these two, the Oldfield sons, is Henry (Fenton); a boy whom with his brother grows up but unlike him moves away although is returning to the farm here-and-now for the first time in many years to sell off a stake in what its worth. His issue with returning is that he has a deeply rooted phobia of sheep given certain events that happened to him on the farm when he was younger. Once there, he meets once again with his brother Angus (Feeney) whom it later transpires is involved in particular genetic experiments involving sheep; something that attracts the attention of two activists named Grant (Driver) and Experience (Mason) whom speak of previous animal rights missions they've undertaken which have gone horribly wrong as they themselves attempt to infiltrate the property.

On another strand, Angus is looking to expand his experiments that have brought about the attention of many businessmen from all over the world, particularly the Japanese which usually means the technological advancements really are rather grandeur. He practises in front of rows of empty chairs where the forthcoming visitors are to sit, and while the composition of many-an empty chair carries with it a sense of foreboding, it is here we put two and two together regarding the premise before realising with a devilish laugh that sheep-fodder is up and on it's way.

Angus' dabbling in "agricultural sciences" will eventually come to see all manner of nastiness break out, writer/director King pushing the boat out and experimenting with all sorts of black comedy and hellish laughs; symptomatically inserting all manner of humour, creativity, energy and pulse into a premise long since worn into the ground by films that are merely homage posing as something much more than a technical exercise. Here, the activists unwittingly release a lamb embryo loose amidst the grounds; King allowing the audience to teasingly hear the results of what happens when one of these fully grown things gets close to a human without actually showing us what happens.

It isn't long before Angus and his team of cold, mechanical and somewhat uncanny looking team of barn-dwelling scientists each end up endangering the lives of everybody on the grounds; Experience and our lead Henry coming to form the core pairing as he attempts to deal with his morbid fear; she attempts to deal with the situation of volatile animals trying to harm her and both of them having to deal with each other as best-of-initial-enemies. King's film is good fun and impressively sticks to its guns in equal measure; delivering on generic demands but keeping everything reigned in. It isn't mean spirited in the mould of the stupefying, poorly made and grotesquely misjudged 2006 horror-comedy Severance, a film which flitted uncomfortably from content to content to cheap laughs to full on torture in an uncontrolled and immature manner, and nor does Black Sheep ever take the essence of its plot too seriously; in a world of unofficial sequels to remakes of films such as The Hills Have Eyes and ill-advised reinvigoration's of others such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Black Sheep is a welcome horror film tonic with its quick wit and eye for brooding situations.

This is one of those movies that is so bad it wraps around into good. Low budget and cheap too.

This is one film not afraid of low brow humour. Bad jokes galore. I won't be spoiling it for you if I tell you it's full of fart jokes.

Everyone agrees it's about time sheep got a chance to let their alter ego go wild. Scientists are still evil of course, but there's lots of hippy activist alternative healing for balance.

Don't look for depth here (even in the underground scenes) but go in prepared to revel in the gore and silliness.

My other vote for this movie was a ten.

When I discussed Eagle Vs Shark I tried my best not to pull pess out of the NZ accent - Oops I did it again! This time though the danger factor is ramped up, as Black Sheep concerns New Zealand citizens and their interactions with the noble sheep.

I could be in trouble here.

2 young boys grow up on a sheep farm, Henry and Angus. After a childhood sheep-related trauma (if only I had a dollar for all those I heard about) Henry moves away to the big city vowing never to return, Angus takes over running the farm once their parents pass away.

Henry, now an adult, comes back to finalise the estate of his late Father and say goodbye to the farm once and for all. Of course this sets the tone for all that follows.

It turns out that there is some shady scientific testing going on at the farm, and that the efforts to engineer the "perfect sheep" have resulted in some less than ideal variants being created and disposed of. Idiot-hippies (no other kind I can think of) come across such evidence and plan to use it for their protesting evidence. When the "evidence" turns out to be alive and escapes - but only after taking a nip out of one of the hippies - all sh*t breaks loose and things go baa-nanas!...

Sorry.

So what follows is a hell of a lot of violence against puppet sheep, and an equal amount of violence perpetrated by the suddenly savage ovine hordes against their former human tormentors. Henry, now joined by one of the hippie-idiots named Experience (told you) and the farm manager Taka seem stranded without transport and must hoof it...

Sorry.

There is some great gore and extremely inventive and effective makeup effects - the team behind a lot of the Lord of the Rings stuff were involved - it's all incredibly over the top and there are liberal lashings of bright blood all over the shop.

All that and I didn't even mention the insinuation of human-ovine love. No wait I just did.

Sorry. (But it's the truth!) Most of the jokes were lighthearted and dumb in an inoffensive way - the only joke that fell altogether flet, I mean flat for me was the use of Mint Sauce as a holy water substitute, aside from that fizzer Bleck Sheep was extremely amusing and well made. I can't go further without acknowledging the blatant rips from many other classic horror films such as Evil Dead, Tremors and An American Werewolf in London, but I'd rather watch a film that rips from the best instead of settling for mediocrity.

Especially when it does so effectively and creates a minor classic like this.

Final Rating - 7.5 / 10. Nothing too original, but funny and fun, and wayyy better than 100s of US or UK films made with a bigger budget but less inspiration annually.