B-Movie Geek

This is not the Black Sheep from 1996 starring Chris Farley and David Spade. No, this is the Black Sheep from 2006, made in New Zealand, with special effects by Peter Jackson's WETA powerhouse, and starring no one you've ever heard of. Rather than explain to you what kind of movie you're in for, I think I'd be just as well off letting the poster do the talking.

And what a poster it is. I'm especially fond of the tagline, which reads "There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand... And they're PISSED OFF!" If this poster doesn't clue you in to the fact that this film is going to be walking the fine line between comedy and horror, nothing short of a blow to the head will.

The plot of the film is extraneous really, but here it is: Henry, our boring hero who grew up on a cattle farm before moving to the big city, is returning home. It seems Henry has developed a bit of a phobia against our fluffy white mammal friends, ever since a tragic farming accident left his father with a serious case of being dead. Henry has returned home to sell his half of the farm to his evil prick brother, Angus. With a name like Angus was their any chance he'd be anything but the movie's main villian? At any rate, it seems old Angus wants the full ownership rights to the farm because he's running a diabolical genetic engineering laboratory out of one of the barns. Oh yeah, and a couple of hippy tree huggers show up and spend a lot of time complaining about the meat industry and other such things that hippies like to complain about.

So, being as this is a tale of science run amok, it's time for the science to run amok. Those aformentioned hippies steal some highly biohazardous material which turns out to be a mutant, killer sheep fetus. One of the hippies gets bit by the thing before it escapes into the pastures where all the other sheep are doing their lazy, grazing thing. A few bites later and we have acres and acres of woolly, crazed, flesh eating, mutant beasties.

This is the part where the movie picks up. Our unlucky heroes, consisting of Henry, Experience (the waifish hippy chick), and a farm hand named Tucker, have to travel across the open pastures, make it back to town, and raise the alarm. Angus, of course, will do anything he can to stop them. You may recall that I said there were a pair of hippies, not just one. Turns out that the bite of these creatures results in some serious cellular regeneration, creating MUTANT SHEEP MEN!

Yeah, that's right. Weresheep.

I'll let you bask in stunned silence now.

The final part of the film plays out a little like the Dead Alive with a mix of Night of the Living Dead thrown in. I wouldn't want to spoil anything, but the movie ends in a whirl wind of excitement. Black Sheep is one of those rare films that delivers exactly what the poster promises; Lots of fun and lots of sheep.

The movie has its share of scares but is played largely for laughs. The film would no doubt be at home in a late night film festival rotation, surrounded by your slightly inebriated friends. There's a lot to love here and little to dislike. The special effects are cheesy but great, and all the acting is worthy of a Hollywood theatrical release. Fans of early Peter Jackson will be delighted to see a lot of similarities.

That said, the movie still isn't perfect. Americans may be put off by slang-filled New Zealand dialogue. The pacing is a bit off as well, although I never found myself waiting impatiently for the next development to occur. The climax, while indeed climatic, didn't have the build up that lets you know that this is the big final moment in the film. It just sort of happens.

The Bottomline: Black Sheep is a fun-filled film. It's not perfect, but horror-comedy fans will feel right at home. The film would play well at parties or social gatherings as the comedy/cheese quotient is high enough to keep horror casuals entertained. Recommended.

Four stars.

Caution, some **SPOILERS** lie ahead, although none about the new movie.

I went to go see Rambo this weekend and I was throughly impressed. The 96-or so minute run time was entirely too short and left me wanting more, more, more! I may be overstating my case, but I really enjoyed this movie. I would recommend that you go out and see it as well, except you probably have already made up your mind about this film. You're well aware of the Rambo character from its place in pop culture and therefore already know whether or not you'll enjoy this kind of mindless, action violence.

Or do you?

The Rambo series, on whole, is largely remembered for the middle two films. First Blood II: Rambo and Rambo III were fun, cheese-filled, pro-America action fests. The scenarios were over the top and the explosions were numerous. This invincible, one-liner spitting, muscle-ripped Rambo is the Rambo that everyone remembers.

But it wasn't always that way.

The first Rambo movie, which didn't even have Rambo in the title, First Blood, was an effective albeit action-oriented look at the post-war life of a Vietnam vet. This isn't your soldier boy Rambo from the sequels, this is a broken husk of a man who simply has no place in a world where he can't hold a job and is despised as a baby-killer. The first film opens of John Rambo drifting from town to town before getting arrested for vagrancy in a hick, backwoods town. He's an emotionally distraught man, suffering from post-war stress, and is pushed too far by abusive law enforcement officers.

It's interesting that a character that would go on to become symbolic of America would spend his first cinematic endeavor killing and maiming police officers. While John Rambo is pushed into the actions he takes, he's clearly on the wrong side of the law. Luckily for theater-goers, this point is largely ignored. Also, the movie leaves out an interesting thematic element from the book it is based on.

Side note: Yes, Rambo is based on a book. It's titled First Blood and was written by David Morrell. It's a good read if you haven't picked it up.

In the book, Rambo is less a character and more a force of nature. The small town sheriff, who is the antagonist in the film, is more the protagonist in the book. The sheriff is a Korean War vet, while Rambo is a Vietnam vet. The two men are similar, with similar experiences and training. The difference is that the sheriff came back to an America that hailed him as a hero, whereas Rambo came home and was shunned and then forgotten. The author also fully acknowledges that the actions Rambo takes are extremely illegal and not justifiable. Rambo, as a character, is beyond the point of redemption.

And that's why he has to die.

There's the aforementioned spoiler. Yes, boys and girls, Rambo dies in the book. He doesn't go to jail only to get released early for taking on a mission rescuing POWS. He doesn't go on to become a symbol of the Reagan-era or a rallying point against communism. Rambo isn't a good man, and he isn't cheered for by the audience. He kills a lot of good people with little incentive and no justification. The movie glosses over this point, but makes it no less true. Yet, somehow, in the movie, we did end up cheering for him. Stallone really pulled one off (or hoodwinked the audience, you decide).

The first movie, despite glossing over Rambo's true nature, is still an effective movie. You feel for Rambo and go through the emotional ups and downs right along side him. The original sequels lost this quality, prefering to make Rambo an invincible, commie-killing machine. The newest sequel, title simply Rambo, is a return to form. We meet up with Rambo again, twenty years later. He's been trying to live in peace, but somehow war finds him again. If the new Rambo does nothing else, it brings us back into the emotional folds of the character. We understand his feelings and motivations. We appreciate him not just as this larger-than-life icon, but as a man.

And I'm happy to say, by the end of this film, Rambo finds himself. He becomes the man that the war machine wouldn't allow him to be. He finally does come back from the point of no return.

At long last, Rambo goes home.

If we never meet this character again, farewell and adieu. Rambo, you will be missed.

I'll be funnier next time, I swear.

Let's be up front about this. Some of you aren't going to like this movie. More to the point, there's a good number of you that won't understand this movie. At all. Not one iota. Evil Aliens was shot on video, has questionable acting, and, at times, is just plain over the top ridiculous. To enjoy this movie you will need to be one of three things:

  1. A connoisseur of low-budget cinema (or, as I call it, a B-movie geek)
  2. At a party, prepared to go MST3K on this movie's ass
  3. Hammered. Really, really hammered.

That said, let's get to the flick.

The film opens with a couple having sex near some old English ruins. The opening scene ends with the couple getting captured by the titular evil aliens and the guy buys it via way of a large, cumbersome anal probe/drill. Ouch. And it only gets better (worse?) from there.

I don't think I can appropriately convey the awesomeness of this movie with words, so I won't even try. I'll let the film speak for itself.

Yeah, that's right. A female alien strips down and engages in rough, freaky, intergalactic, interspecies sex with one of the male leads. Folks, I've seen a lot of movies, but this one was new to me. Oh yeah, you know how in bad horror movies blood just seems to spray everywhere? This scene caps off like that, but the fluid in question definitely isn't blood.

If you're a fan of Peter Jackson's early work, you're well aware of a little movie called Dead Alive (or Brain Dead, if you're from the UK). At the climax of that film, the main character fights off a horde of zombies with an upturned, gas-engine lawnmower. Do you remember the giddy excitement you felt the first time you saw that scene? That one moment where he was about to hit that first zombie with that lawnmower and you thought to yourself, "There's no way they're actually going to- OH GOD! They're actually showing it!" Yeah. The wheat thresher scene is kind of like that.

Finally, we have the obligatory, hand-held, motorized power tool. Ash has his chainsaw. Lionel has his lawnmower. Candy has her hand-held soil tiller. Copious homage to other genre films is paid during the setup and execution of this scene. A simple shot of an over head light bulb getting splashed with blood will have Deadite fans grinning from ear to ear.

Evil Aliens is what the recent blockbuster Grindhouse aspired, and failed, to be- a return to old school, no-nonsense, trash cinema. Whereas Grindhouse felt forced and manufactured, Evil Aliens is genuine and satisfying. Evil Aliens is sick and twisted but possesses a wicked sense of humor. The filmmakers clearly didn't have a lot of money, but the money they did have was used well. The special effects and makeup in the film are well done, although some of the CGI could look better. The script is smart, with many nods to other genre films, including The Evil Dead, Dead Alive, Night of the Living DeadBad Taste, and Freak Out. The movie is FULL of fun moments like the three detailed above. The director/writer, Jake West, clearly loves the genre and his film plays out like a wish list any horror fanboy might have written. Evil Aliens is a labor of love, and I loved it right back.

Bottomline: Evil Aliens is definitely not for the uninitiated or those without a sense of humor. For those true B-Movie fans out there, do not miss this one. It's an exercise of excess and one hell of a ride. It's out on DVD already, so check out your regular haunts and get a copy ASAP.

Four stars.

This is a movie that came out on DVD last year (weird), sometime towards the end of June. I had heard a bit of buzz about it coming out of the major indy film fests, but I never really got bit by the bug to check it out. Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon basically fell off my radar as quickly as it showed up.

Quick jump to early December and I'm sitting at home in a darkened living room, begging my lady to make some popcorn, as the previews come up on the Hatchet DVD. If you'll indulge me for a moment I'll explain that my sheer excitement over Hatchet and my deep desire to see it in a theater setting led me to sit through all the previews stuck in front the the feature film. This is something I never ever do. But I'm glad I did as it reintroduced me to the messed up world of Leslie Vernon.

The movie's basic premise is that Leslie Vernon has been training his entire life to become the next big horror/slasher icon and a film crew is documenting his rise to infamy. The first half of the movie takes place as a mockumentary, think Spinal Tap but with more murder. The film crew covers everything from Leslie's extensive physical training, to discussing house exit strategies, and even the inevitable mass homicide in the film's final act. There's a lot of sly audience winking, but never in that heavy handed Scream sort of way. The movie simply oozes charm.

Nathan Baesal
does a comendable job as the titular Leslie Vernon. During the mockumentary he delivers a great, fun performance. Leslie Vernon is your average twenty-something simply trying to make his mark on the world. You genuinely come to like Leslie and his behind the scenes, on-camera antics. Just when you feel like this guy could be your best friend, he breaks out a serious, nasty comment or action, reminding you just who this guy really is.

And that is who Leslie Vernon really is, a human monster with some seriously creepy, clown-like vibes coming from that mask. In the second half of the film the mockumentary facade fades away and we get down to the slasher essentials. Although this is the weakest part of the movie, that's not really a complaint. The more traditional slasher portion of the film is well done, and as it happens, necessary for the film's success. The mockumentary is fun, but it needs to lead somewhere, and the last half of the film is that much required pay off.

This is one of those films that didn't get a lot of mainstream coverage and I'd hate for it to slip through the cracks. Even if you're only a casual friend of the genre, I'd recommend checking this one out. Doubly so because this is one of the few slasher films in recent memory that the lady sat down to watch without any additional goading on my part. Nathan Baesal is charasmatic as hell and really draws you into the world of the movie. By the time the slasher movie really begins, you're so comfortable with the characters that you almost forget what you're in store for.

Bottomline: The film is fun but still manages to scare, and the girlfriend loved it. What more can you ask for in a horror flick?

P.S. I didn't mention this anywhere because it just didn't naturally fit, but the film also co-stars Robert Englund and even features a brief cameo by Kane Hodder. Rock!

Five stars.

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