Thursday, May 29, 2008

Random DVD Round-Up 1 - BLACK SHEEP

New Zealand is like the Wales of Asia-Pac. All the jokes revolve around villagers shagging sheep. Well, now, thanks to genetic engineering, the sheep are pissed off and biting back, resulting in human-sheep zombies! All this is naturally a bit of a shock for our hero - a younger son shunned by his family after a childhood scare made him afraid of sheep and reject his farming inheritance. He's backed up by a much-mocked hippie as they take on corporate greed and childhood fear.

I am unlikely to hate any movie that takes the piss out of vegetarian hippies. And I love that BLACK SHEEP satirises hippies and greedy capitalist bastards with an even hand. I also love the lashings of squelchy, bloddy gore that drenches this film, courtesy of the Weta Workship (of LOTR fame). So on those counts alone, BLACK SHEEP works as a decent comedy - certainly good enough for DVD if not for the cinema. Where I think BLACK SHEEP is weaker is in terms of genuine horror. The movie is way too tongue in cheek to provide any real scares, unlike SEVERANCE which trod the fine line on horror-comedy perfectly, and SHAUN OF THE DEAD which is the benchmark of perfection for this genre.

BLACK SHEEP played Toronto 2006 and was released last year. It is available on DVD.

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