Black Sheep

Unique villains in horror movies are becoming increasingly rare.  All the classics - vampires, zombies, werewolves, ghosts, masked madmen - have dominated countless films.  Even killer sharks, alligators, dolls, snowmen, and plants have made their appearances.  But one thing the genre was lacking was an army of killer sheep.  Fortunately, writer/director Jonathan King realized this, and gave us Black Sheep with its genius tagline "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand... and they're pissed off!"

Henry (Nathan Meister) returns home to find his brother Angus (Peter Feeney) has been experimenting with genetically-engineered sheep.  Of course, the experiments go awry, resulting in a flock of mutant sheep who are hungry for human flesh.  It's up to Henry to save the day, an intimidating task since Henry's been suffering from ovinophobia, or, as he puts it, "just a completely unfounded and irrational fear that one day this is gonna happen!"

The effects are done by WETA Workshops, known for their work on the films of Peter Jackson; Black Sheep, in fact, is reminiscent of some of Jackson's earlier work, like Dead Alive.  Blood and guts and limbs all fly freely, literally at some times:  a man throws his own severed leg at an approaching sheep.  The gore is well-done and fun in its over-the-top way, and it leads to more laughs when you think about the fact that sheep are causing this mayhem.

In one intense sequence, a sheep attacks the driver of a vehicle, with a fierce battle ensuing before all the passengers escape onto the back of the still-moving truck; one character belatedly wonders, "Who's driving?".  Cut to a shot of the sheep behind the steering wheel.  To top it off, as the sheep is about to drive off the cliff, the people jump off the truck and into a field; supposedly, their dog does as well, though he is obviously thrown into the shot.  Other highlights include "menacing" shots of a single sheep, ominously shadowed and bleating, staring down its potential victims, and a vegetarian hippie, the first human to be bitten by the sheep, who tries valiantly to resist his urge to eat flesh.  There are also fart jokes and sexual innuendos ("Fuck the sheep!"  "No time for that, bro!"), but not enough to be tiresome.

Black Sheep is immensely funny and entertaining, succeeding in balancing its horror and comedy elements.  The film does run out of steam a bit, relying mainly on its ludicrous premise for laughs, but it's still a fun ride.  Black Sheep is a silly, knowing send-up of horror films and clichés, never taking itself too seriously, but providing good laughs and splatter.

Jack Frost 2: Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman

Marla:  Oh, come on, Sam, we don't even know if it's Jack Frost.
Sam:  No, Marla, it's probably some other walking, talking snowman that everybody's talking about. 

A title like Jack Frost 2:  Revenge of the Mutant Killer Snowman offers viewers all the information they need to know whether they'd even consider watching such a film.

The first Jack Frost saw a serial killer coming back from the dead as a mutant killer snowman to terrorize the policeman who caught him.  Fortunately, good triumphed, and Jack is dead and gone.  Now, Sam Tiler (Christopher Allport, returning from the first film) is having trouble getting over last year's massacre, and, with Christmastime approaching, fears Jack's return.  His wife Anne (Eileen Seeley, also returning) suggests a vacation to a tropical island to take Sam's mind off things.  Even if Jack were coming back, a snowman couldn't survive in hot weather anyway, right?

Well, thanks to some shady experiments by government scientists, Jack's been genetically modified so that antifreeze and hairdryers no longer work against him.  Jack is also now somehow psychically linked to Sam, so he makes his way to the sunny island and starts disposing of the vacationers in rather odd ways.  A bikini model's head explodes after sucking on an ice cube with essence of Jack, a cameraman is stabbed to death with a carrot nose, and a boy has his frozen tongue ripped from a pole, with Jack yelling, "Cowa-tongue-a, dude!"

Things really get dangerous when the islanders realize Jack's not alone; he's spawned a whole bunch of baby snowballs who are just as hard to kill as he is.  Even mixing one of the babies in a blender doesn't harm it; instead, the little guy chirps, "That was fun!"

There's actually quite a bit of blood, as limbs are hacked off by deadly snowballs.  The effects are cheap-looking; the baby snowballs are obviously puppets that were purchased at the nearest thrift store.  The purchase price of the DVD is probably larger than the film's budget (check out the "Snowmonton International Airport," quite clearly nothing more than an average home with an open front door).  But this is not a movie that's trying to break new ground in effects work; this is a completely silly movie that never takes itself seriously.  Neither should its viewers.

The DVD surprisingly offers some bonus features.  These include an audio commentary, behind the scenes feature, interview with the director, trailer, and a ludicrous "music video" featuring the cast singing, with no musical accompaniment, what must be an improvised song about Jack (the best part is a rap about the snowballs, culminating in the line, "Not even antifreeze can take the suckas out").