Black Sheep.

"Equal parts The Birds, Jurassic Park and The Host, Black Sheep is more a satire on the horror genre than it is a cautionary tale about genetic engineering-gone-wrong in the New Zealand countryside," writes Cullen Gallagher in the L Magazine. "It continually reinvents the most clichéd elements of the horror genre, using easily recognizable and iconic shots from any number of other films... but this time with sheep."

Updated through 6/22.

"The cartoonish overkill that often makes Black Sheep a hoot proves wearying over an entire movie: The broad comedy and one-note characters eventually cancel out the horror, leaving elaborate set pieces that are more frantic than funny," writes Jim Ridley in the Voice. "But writer-director [Jonathan] King deserves credit for wringing every ounce of ovine mayhem from his sheep-for-brains premise. There is no such thing as an unfunny cutaway to a sheep."

"Black Sheep partisans have continuously noted the similarities between King's impressive debut and the nutty low-budget mayhem that sustains Peter Jackson's Dead Alive and Sam Raimi's Evil Dead movies, and the comparisons are apt," writes Eric Kohn in the New York Press. "But Jonathan King also applies the subtler technique of an older forebear - Val Lewton, the visionary producer behind significant creepers of the 1940s like Cat People and I Walked with a Zombie."

"King wants to sizzle your biscuits a little, like any decent horror-phile, but his bloodshed and impressive creature effects (by the WETA Workshop, of Lord of the Rings fame) are folded into a good-humored pastiche whose ingredients are a bit of Night of the Living Dead, a little Island of Dr Moreau, a fair dose of The Fly and a topping of self-deprecating Kiwi humor," writes Salon's Andrew O'Hehir. "It reminds me more than a little of Frogs, a 1972 movie with Ray Milland and Sam Elliott whose half-intentional comedy I did not appreciate at the time."

Updates, 6/22: "The gold standard for the modern monster movie remains Tremors, which combines genuine thrills with clever plot twists and distinctive characters," writes Noel Murray at the AV Club. "By contrast, Black Sheep has a bunch of one-note living jokes running around willy-nilly while being chased by killer sheep."

"[T]he movie is less a running gag than an ingenious prank," counters Sam Adams for the Los Angeles Times. "As if fulfilling the terms of an undisclosed bet, Black Sheep sets out to prove that the response to horror-film grammar is so ingrained that the right combination of signals can set our hearts racing even as our minds giggle."

"Turning a notoriously docile, none-too-intelligent species into a source of menace is an impressive, if improbable, feat of filmmaking," writes AO Scott in the New York Times.

"Black Sheep does manage to generate some suspense in the midst of its general silliness, though not as successfully as Shaun of the Dead, which remains the current gold standard of the genre," writes the LA CityBeat's Andy Klein.

Bilge Ebiri at Nerve: "In the end, Black Sheep delivers just what it promises: A movie about killer sheep. For better, and for worse."

"I laughed, my guilt over what I might be doing subsiding with each new shock comedy bit, usually something involving severed limbs munched on by the newly deranged wool providers, a twist on a familiar horror movie cliche, or the inevitable sheep shagging jokes, which the movie takes a while to get to," writes Robert Cashill. "There is also the entirely incidental beauty of the setting, shot in ravishing widescreen by Richard Bluck, and a cheerful rubbishing of eco- and psychiatric-speak as Henry and his hippy-dippy 'lunatic greenie' girlfriend Experience (Danielle Mason) find love on the run from herds of ravening sheep."

Posted by dwhudson at June 21, 2007 12:36 PM