This film would seem to have everything going for it: competent direction, excellent score, effects by the masters at WETA, and carnivorous sheep. So what happened? The acting, while occasionally good, is often terrible. I understand the importance of an all-indie cast, but couldn't they have found good actors? But perhaps they aren't as bad as it seems, what with the terrible script. It appears that writer/director Jonathan King (who should stick to the directing and leave the words on the page to someone else) was trying to make a film like those of early career Peter Jackson (think Bad Taste and Braindead): horrifically gory but shockingly funny; and he failed on both counts. While there were a few moments where I laughed, most of it was forced and often just terrible writing ("The Feng Shui in this room is terrible!"). Sometimes the jokes would have worked if the timing of the actors and the editing was better, but that, apparently, was too much to ask. He should have jumped right into it, making everything gory and shocking and funny at the same time (for instance, there could have been a freaky if hilarious scene where Angus could have mated with the pure white sheep, instead of the one-off "animal husbandry" line). I was really hoping this would be good, but it wasn't. A disappointment.
Review of Black Sheep
