That any of our sensible and intelligent readership might have checked out Black Sheep a few weeks ago, whether on my feeble recommendation or because someone switched DVDs on you at the video store when you weren’t looking, seems not too terribly probable. Anyone that did, as much as or as little as they might have enjoyed themselves, was probably left asking: “What if…?”
What if the makers of Black Sheep hadn’t resorted to camp?
What if they hadn’t played it for laughs?
What if they’d set out to make a really horrifying film instead of just a "scary movie"?
What if they didn’t stop with creature shop prostheses and splatter but went all out and got real intimate and viscous and pointy and Cronenbergy about things? (I’ve lost my copy of the ALOTT5MA Manual of Style, so maybe that should be “Cronenbergian”. Not “Cronenbergesque” though. No. No indeed.)
And what if they’d set it in Ireland with cows instead of New Zealand with sheep?
In that (those) event(s), the movie in question would have been the deadly well done and so far under-appreciated if by no means groundbreaking 2005 Irish Film Board effort Isolation, the story of a near-broke Irish rancher who rents his operation out to a not-ready-for-prime-time geneticist, thereby putting himself, his stock, his large animal veterinarian, and a pair of caravan gypsy fugitives squatting near his property in peril of being consumed by the mutant offspring of tough economic times and secrets man was not meant to know. It's dark, tense, drippy, and sticky, with cringe and jump-factors that will remind you (if you like this genre of film) why you like this genre of film. It's the 28 Days Later to Black Sheep's Dead Alive, if that means anything to you. If it doesn't, likely best you stay away.
In closing, let’s be clear that I’m not recommending this movie. Not because I didn't like it, but because it’s just not the sort of thing one recommends (without the excuse of a semi-scientific algorithm that automatically generates recommendations from previously expressed preferences submitted willingly by the recommendee, thereby insuring that it’s their own silly fault).
I've always thought it too bad that movies largely limit the study of lycanthropy to the more common wolf strain. Nothing says we can't have werebears, wearsharks, or wearslugs.
ReplyDeleteThere's always Ladyhawke, if you want to count that as lycanthropy.
ReplyDeleteIt's the next great SyFy Original Movie: Lycanthropus vs. Sharktopus!
ReplyDeleteWererabbit! Wererabbit! Wererabbit! ...it may have been tripped up by Wallace & Gromit a few years ago, but there's still a fun coming-of-age movie waiting to be made about a socially awkward and somewhat timid young man with a rich interior life, struggling to gain acceptance, to find confidence in himself, but also to hide his insufficiently monstrous nocturnal transformation from all the cool kids who turn into predators. Sort of a One Crazy Summer for the Twilight set.
ReplyDeleteI feel like this was a Buffy episode? Or several Buffy episodes? They always did a good job linking the awkwardness of high school to the awkwardness of turning into a monster.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there's that TV show in development about the kid who has a really lame superpower - called 2 inches or something? Anyone remember what I'm talking about? It was announced a few months ago...
ReplyDeletePoint taken, but then we should also include Manimal for its efforts to raise Lycanthropy awareness.
ReplyDeleteAnd here's the perfect opportunity to say RIP, Simon MacCorkindale.
ReplyDelete