Black Sheep (2006 New Zealand film)

Black Sheep
New Zealand Film Poster
Directed by	Jonathan King
Written by	Jonathan King
Produced by	Phillipa Campbell
Starring	Matthew Chamberlain Tammy Davis Oliver Driver Peter Feeney
Cinematography	Richard Bluck
Edited by	Chris Plummer
Music by	Victoria Kelly
Distributed by	The Weinstein Company Australasian Film Ltd. Icon Film Distribution
Release dates	29 March, 2007 June 22, 2007 12 October, 2007
Running time	87 min.
Country	New Zealand
Language	English

Black Sheep is a New Zealand made comedy/horror film directed by Jonathan King and made in a similar style to Peter Jackson's early films such as Bad Taste and Braindead.

North American distribution rights have been acquired by The Weinstein Company and IFC Films. The Weinstein Company released the film on DVD on October 9th, 2007 under their Dimension Extreme brand through Genius Products. In the UK, the film was released on 31 March, 2008.

Special effects for the film were handled by Weta Workshop.

Plot

A young Henry Oldfield lives on a sheep farm in New Zealand, with his father and older brother, Angus. After witnessing his father's pride on Henry's natural ability at farming, Angus intends to play a cruel prank on him involving the bloody corpse of his pet sheep, just moments before Mrs. Mac comes to tell the boys that their father has been killed in an accident. The combined shock of these two incidents leads Henry to develop a crippling phobia of sheep.

Fifteen years later, Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home to sell his share of the family farm to Angus (Peter Feeney). Unknown to Henry, Angus is carrying out secret genetic experiments. While trying to expose Angus's experiments, a pair of environmental activists named Grant and Experience (Danielle Mason) accidentally release a mutant lamb. As Grant and Experience flee from the scientists, the lamb bites Grant and infects him. The lamb then infects the herds of sheep.

Meanwhile, Henry and an old friend, Tucker, decide to take a drive on the farm. Tucker sees a sheep that refuses to run away. At the same time, Experience steals a rifle from the car to try to shoot them. They eventually team up with each other to investigate a farm house that has smoke pouring out of it. Inside they find a dead farmer. Henry sees a sheep in the hallway and, because of his phobia, he quietly shuts the door and locks it. The sheep tries to crash through the door. Tucker shoots the sheep.

On the other end of the farm, Angus is driving around when he sees Grant. Grant bites Angus and runs off.

Back in the car, Tucker, Experience, and Henry leave to warn Angus about the killer sheep, but a sheep hiding in the car bites Tucker. After the car is destroyed, they seek refuge in the laboratory. Henry and Tucker finally realize that Angus is conducting cruel experiments. When one of the scientists see that Tucker's foot has now become a sheep's foot, she keeps him there for study but Experience and Henry escape when Angus cannot bring himself to shoot his own brother.

Suddenly hordes of sheep come running down the hill. They see an offal pit surrounded by a gate. Henry accidentally slips into the pit, and his brother refuses to help. Henry and Experience fall into the pit but escape in the underground tunnels. Meanwhile, Tucker transforms into a sheep, but the scientist administers an injection of amniotic fluid from one of the mutant lambs which transforms him back to human.

Angus gives a presentation to businessmen about his new genetically engineered sheep. The businessmen are soon devoured by the infected sheep. When Henry and Experience try to warn Angus, they discover he has a love for sheep. Disgusted, they leave. Henry realizes he's been infected so, like Angus, sheep no longer attack him. Henry and Experience go their separate ways. Henry ends up fighting with his brother, who has now transformed. The revolving propeller of the family plane cuts into Angus and wounds him badly. Tucker suddenly arrives and disinfects Angus and Henry with more anmiotic fluid, administered via a medicine nozzle designed for sheep. Experience arrives. Even though Angus is now a human, he goes back to the sheep and tells them to bite him again. The sheep, driven mad by the smell of blood, eat Angus. Eventually, all the sheep are contained and killed in a giant bonfire of ignited sheep flatulence. The cure is given to the surviving were-sheep people, including Grant.

However, the sheep dog now makes sheep noises.

Trivia

• Director Jonathan King is the son of the late Michael King. The first victim is reading Michael King's History of New Zealand.
• In Spain, the distributor Manga Films released the film theatrically with Severance, in a Grindhouse-like format.

Cast

Actor	Role
Matthew Chamberlain	Oliver
Oliver Driver	Grant
Tammy Davis	Tucker
Peter Feeney	Angus
Tandi Wright	Dr Rush
Mick Rose	Mike
Nathan Meister	Henry
Danielle Mason	Experience
Eli Kent	Young Angus
Nick Fenton	Young Henry

Reception

Black Sheep received 71% positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes; from metacritic.com it received a rating of 62% from critics and 8.6 out of 10 from users. It also received a handful of awards:

• Golden Raven to the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film, in 2007.
• Special Jury Prize to the Gérardmer Film Festival, in 2007.
• Audience Prize to the Gérardmer Film Festival, in 2007.
• Best Dramatic Presentation - Long Form Award at the 2008 Sir Julius Vogel Awards for New Zealand science fiction and fantasy

External links

• Official site
• Black Sheep at IMDb
• Black Sheep at Rotten Tomatoes
• Weta Workshop
• New Zealand Film news
• Xavier La Canna, Herald Sun New Zealanders' fear of sheep realised