IMDb user comments for
Black Sheep (2006/I) More at IMDbPro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 13:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Index

128 comments in total

---

131 out of 154 people found the following comment useful :-
Damn fine film., 25 May 2007

Author: OnewithTheClaws from Wellington, New Zealand

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.

---

96 out of 124 people found the following comment useful :-
Hilarious!, 29 April 2007

Author: fickle_kitty19 from United States

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!

---

67 out of 98 people found the following comment useful :-
Gore at its greatest, 16 March 2007

Author: nivag_87 from New Zealand

Black Sheep, a black comedy from Jonathan King, was anything but sheepish when it came to blood and gore. Reminiscent of early Peter Jackson films, the graphic detail is bound to make you squirm, and at times chuckle. Incidentally, the film borrowed one of Jackson's Oscar winning tools, Weta Workshops. Needless to say the effects are bound to impress.

With a number of international movies shot in New Zealand with plots that could easily take place anywhere, Black Sheep offers a refreshingly unique New Zealand twist to the well-used zombie theme. The characters and issues related so well that even the Aussies couldn't claim it as their own- well, except maybe the sheep shagging jokes.

It certainly doesn't take long to adjust to hearing Kiwi accents on the big screen and start relishing in the subtle humour, grotesque effects and brilliant performances by some underrated New Zealand talent.

King's first feature film has taken the zombie flick back to grass roots level. Not baaad.

---

57 out of 80 people found the following comment useful :-
The most fun I've had at the movies this year., 28 April 2007

Author: sanjr1 from United States

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!!

---

65 out of 97 people found the following comment useful :-
great zombie film.....with sheep!, 26 February 2007

Author: Adam Roffman from Somerville, MA

I went into this film with high hopes, but no expectations and I was very impressed with it. This is a great zombie film with plenty of suspense and jump-out-of-your seat moments. The actors all did a great job and it was shot extremely well. It is a very fun and high quality movie. I had read someone else's comments about it being full of low-brow humor and fart jokes, but there were actually only two jokes in the entire movie that would be described that way.

Anyone who likes the "serious" zombie movies like Dawn of the Dead or 28 Days Later would enjoy this film as would the audiences of lighter films like Shaun of the Dead. It's somewhere in-between the two. I definitely recommend it.

---

35 out of 46 people found the following comment useful :-
A Nutshell Review: Black Sheep, 21 July 2007

Author: DICK STEEL from Singapore

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.

---

39 out of 60 people found the following comment useful :-
Damn good movie. Scary in two ways., 18 May 2007

Author: robert_j_deane from Melbourne, Australia

I thought this movie was lots of fun. It is not really for intellectual heavyweights, but if you want to be entertained for an hour and a half, then this is definitely one to watch.

It certainly stereotypes New Zealanders in a way I bet will annoy them no end, but it probably points to the maturity of their nation that they can get away with sheep-sex jokes without it causing too much angst.

There were some great one-liners, and the special effects were quite sophisticated too. The psycho sheep looked quite real at times.

I am just wondering how they got the real sheep to act so convincingly, by running in the right direction at the right time, and going up to people etc. I owned sheep as a child, and they are dumb animals.

---

29 out of 45 people found the following comment useful :-
Woolly Bullies!, 17 April 2007

Author: Coventry from the Draconian Swamp of Unholy Souls

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.

---

26 out of 41 people found the following comment useful :-
"Shear" Terror...., 4 July 2007

Author: Christopher T. Chase (cchase@onebox.com) from Arlington, VA.

At first blush, it reads like an SNL skit that the writers decided not to use at the last minute. Murderous genetically-altered sheep on a rampage? Even Roger Corman never went there, and maybe it was for a reason...

And that reason was because writer/director Jonathan King needed to claim this baby for his own, and he has made the most of the opportunity. "Black Sheep" has that same kooky, OTT vibe of the mad scientist/monster flicks of the Fifties and Sixties with a more post-modern sensibility, much in the same affectionately twisted tone adapted by similar movies like "Tremors", "Feast", "Slither", the often-mentioned "Shaun of the Dead", and the film that this will be most compared to (and rightly so) - "Dead-Alive", the splat-tastic horror/comedy opus created by fellow Kiwi filmmaker gone "big time", Peter Jackson.

The plot is classic creepfest kitsch with a New Zealand transplant. Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister) has been terrified of sheep for most of his life, the result of a horrific prank played on him in childhood by his crippled, bitter brother, Angus (Peter Feeney). Fifteen years later, Henry has gone back Down Under to tend to unfinished business - meaning facing his fears and selling off his half of the family sheep farm to his brother.

Meantime, Angus has concentrated on increasing the fortunes and finances of the family business by turning it over to a disgraced geneticist (Tandi Wright) for whom the farm has become one big test tube. Hippie activists Experience (Danielle Mason) and her sometime boyfriend, Grant (Oliver Driver) are out to expose Angus's subsidized experiments for the crimes against nature and ecology that they are. But as well-intended as their efforts are, everyone knows how true the old saying is about the best-laid plans...

Not surprisingly, the success of the entire film lies in the engaging cast, the goofy-yet-solid script, the beautiful cinematography, but most of all in the practical on-set and visual effects provided by Peter Jackson's own WETA Workshop and WETA Digital companies. And all quarters deliver fabulously, resulting in a great, loopy time at the movies that will have you giggling, gasping or gagging, sometimes all three simultaneously.

With the right frame of mind, I think that most horror fans or just casual viewers who like the occasional off-beat entertainment should find something to like here. Everyone else can just revisit the Merchant-Ivory section of the video store and steer clear.

---

38 out of 66 people found the following comment useful :-
Brilliant., 8 April 2007
Author: ericajane503 from New Zealand

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!

---

---

Page 1 of 13:

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot synopsis	Ratings	Awards
Newsgroup reviews	External reviews	Parents Guide
Official site	Plot keywords	Main details
Your user comments	Your vote history