Ever since Night of the Lepus, the idea of building a horror comedy around traditionally fright-free creatures is one that resonates in the hearts and bloody minds of wiseass horror buffs. In the case of Jonathan King's Black Sheep (Dimension Extreme Films), the ironic subtext is magnified immensely by its country of origin. Filmed and set in New Zealand, home to "40 million sheep, four million people," the film concerns a dangerous flock of "Frankensheep" that run amuck after a pair of ineffectual "lunatic greenies" accidentally release a genetics lab's failed experiment.
The guiding force behind the lab is an unpleasant agribusinessman named Angus Oldfield (Peter Feeney); his nebbishy brother Henry (Nathan Meister) is returning to the family farm after a traumatic childhood incident spurred a profound case of ovinophobia. Angus, we're given more than a broad hint, has a none-too-healthy interest in the sheep on his farm, an interest which is capped by a wondrously sick scene near the end of the film (almost as memorable as the flying penis from Street Trash.) Brother Henry has returned to the family farm to sell his half of the place to his brother. The first time we see him as an adult, he's not so quietly freaking out over a flock that has innocently wandered onto the road. "My therapist said I should come," he explains.
Later, of course, after we’ve seen the failed medical experiment rip the ear of a hippie animal activist (and said activist's transformation into an upright were-sheep), a farmhand's grisly demise, and beaucoup attacks by snarling animatronic sheep we can empathize with Henry's anxiety. In one of the movie's most visually memorable bits, we see a second flock running down the hilly countryside to attack a crowd of would-be business investors; the pastoral image is instantly contrasted by an ultra-bloody sequence where, among other things, we're shown two sheep engaging in a tug of war with a still-screaming victim's intestines. "But I'm a vegetarian!" one of the bloodied investors proclaims.
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