Black Sheep

Black Sheep was always going to appeal to a particular kind of people – those wonderfully astute horror fans who remember when gore and comedy went together like blood and guts, who thought Ash was the second coming, and still associate Peter Jackson with vomit-drinking and lawnmowers instead of elves and hobbits. Jonathon King knows this, and as such, Black Sheep is a gleeful, if slightly forgettable, triumph.

It’s from New Zealand, so Jackson references were always going to be applicable, as are the jokes about what the kiwis really do with sheep. But they also turn into the woolly mammals, especially when genetically engineered were-sheep rebel and take over the peaceful, rolling hills of evil wool-magnate Angus’s (Eli Kent) farm.

So it’s up to Angus’s sheep-phobic brother Henry, along with eco-terrorist hippy-chick Experience (Dannielle Mason as the requisite love interest), laidback Maori shepherd Tucker (Tammy Davis) and elderly housekeeper Mrs Mac (Glenis Levestam) to take down the woolly menace.

It’s stupid, it’s gory, it’s violent, and it’s so shamelessly these things that it’s gloriously satisfying. A bit forgettable, it’s hardly up to the standard of the old Jackson films, but it’s silly and knowing, has fantastic supporting performances, some brilliant sight gags, and the best in Weta’s animatronic gore.

Screw the big-budget CGI stuff, I want a were-sheep I can reach out and touch.