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Black Sheep [2007] (DVD)
by SWSt
Since this is my 1,000th review (eek!), I thought I'd write something really special; something enlightening, deep and thought-provoking. Then I thought "Nah. Why bother. I'll just write about a rubbish B Movie 'cos that's what loads of my other reviews are about."
And so we come to Black Sheep, a heart-warming tale ... in which sheep (in time-honoured B Movie tradition) are being genetically modified by mad business people who want to make more money from them. Baaaaad move business guy because your sheep are going to become mutant killer sheep.
There are so very many reasons why Black Sheep is rubbish. We'll come some of them in a moment, but it's biggest failing boils down to one simple fact: sheep are not scary. Not even mutant sheep. Not even man-eating mutant sheep. Sheep are like dirty clouds with legs, only even more stupid. The worst you can expect from them is a suspicious glance.
You can forgive the fact that this is an insanely silly plot, because it's meant to be. Black Sheep is yet another film that tries to tackle that tricky genre: the horror comedy. It wants to be Tremors with sheep instead of giant worms. It fails.
It fails because you can't get away from that fact that sheep are not scary. At the heart of all horror comedies there has to be the sense that the mutated monster really is ferocious - think the worms in Tremors or Slither, the Piranhas in Piranha 3D. Those were all very silly films, but they also managed to generate a few mild scares and bit of tension. Whilst there might be some mileage in turning a normally docile animal into a crazed killer it has be done right and Black Sheep gets the tone all wrong.
It suffers from another issue that have killed so many horror-comedies: it's neither consistently funny, nor consistently scary. There are a few moments that will make you smile (although never too strenuously), but it lacks those absurd laugh out loud moments that mark out the best horror comedies. For every "smile" moment there are half a dozen clumsy attempts at humour that fall embarrassingly flat.
Black Sheep never quite seems able to decide what sort of comedic tone it wants to adopt, either. Is it an out and out stupid B movie homage? Is it poking fun at the well-known fact that New Zealand contains more sheep than people? Is it taking a pot-shot at dippy hippy, flower power ideas or is it a satire about modern agricultural methods and the dangers of making animal husbandry too scientific? Black Sheep tries to be all these things and so, perhaps inevitably, it ends up not really being any. It veers wildly between all these different elements and ends up falling into the great big black hole of comedy oblivion.
The same is true of the horror element. Even allowing for the fact that sheep are not scary, Black Sheep fails to establish any sort of tension or atmosphere. The best horror-comedies give you moments when you are genuinely scared or are capable of making you jump as much as they make you laugh. The few attempts at scares in Black Sheep are horribly telegraphed and, unless you are of a particularly nervous disposition, extremely unlikely to make you jump.
Thanks to my love of B movies and daft horror-comedies, Black Sheep should have been right up my alley. Instead, I found my attention wandering frequently and I actually started doing other stuff whilst watching it. It failed to engage me on any level, to the point that if I walked out of the room to fetch something from another room, I didn't bother to pause it. This NEVER happens. Just ask the long-suffering Mrs SWSt.
That the cast are a bunch of walking stereotypes is not necessarily a problem, since horror comedies often rely on such things to generate comedy. Unfortunately, it is an issue that they are rather bland and fail to do anything interesting, even when being chased by mutant killer sheep. Sheep-phobic Henry Oldfield (Nathan Meister) is as dull as ditch water and completely unconvincing. Peter Feeny (as Henry's brother, Angus) is marginally better as the sleazy sheep farmer, but isn't anything we've not seen before. Danielle Mason as hippy chick Experience is probably the best of a weak lot and she has some of the best lines where she trundles out her New Age mumbo jumbo at the most inappropriate of times. Similarly, Glenis Levestom's offal-obsessed housekeeper and all round tough old bird raises a few smiles on the (all too infrequent) occasions that she appears on screen.
There are three things that just about save Black Sheep from being condemned to the SWSt One Star Hall of Fame. The first is the few moments of humour which do actually work. The second is a couple of set-pieces which show what the movie could have been had they included a bit more gore. The attack on the assembled VIP farming guests by the mutant sheep is good fun, featuring plenty of blood, guts and severed limbs. It's like something out George A Romero would do if he was obsessed by sheep. The final battle between the two brothers also features an impressively bloody sequence which, even if you can see it coming a mile off, is still fun to watch.
The final reason is the impressive special effects. The animatronic mutant sheep were created by Peter Jackson's Weta Workshops and, frankly, they are far, far too good for this film. It's a bit like using a brand new Rolls Royce to enter a stock car rally - a terrible waste of something really rather good.
At the end of the day, Black Sheep blunders headlong into the same pitfall that has trapped so many horror-comedies before it: it's neither funny enough to justify the comedy tag, nor scary enough to be an effective horror film. In the right hands, it's possible that a comedy-horror about mutant sheep could have worked, but writer/director Jonathan King misjudges it badly.
On the plus side, because it's so bad it's not going to cost a fortune to buy. In fact ewe cud* even say it's as sheep as chips!
Sorry. What a way to end your 1,000th review.
Basic Information
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Black Sheep
2006
Director: Jonathan King
Running time: approx. 87 minutes
Certificate: 15
* Look: I know this is cows, but you try coming up with three sheep related jokes in one sentence.
(c) Copyright SWSt 2012
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My Name Is Bruce (DVD)
by Wolfzilla
Sometimes the maths just doesn't add up. Despite having no interest whatsoever in Star Trek, I thoroughly enjoyed the comedy adventure movie Galaxy Quest, which saw the cast of a fictional Trek like show kidnapped from a Sci Fi convention by aliens to help save their universe. It's a fairly fun concept and the crew clearly had a lot of ... time for the genre they were sending up, but at the same time a bit of self awareness. Likewise, as a Jean Claude Van Damme fan, I thoroughly enjoyed seeing him play (an exaggerated) version of himself in JCVD. Mix in the fact that I'm a huge fan of Bruce Campbell, and a film which comes across as almost a merger of Galaxy Quest and JCVD based around the B-Movie star sounds like a great night's entertainment. Sadly in this case 2+2+1 certainly did not equal 5.
For those wondering exactly who Mr. Campbell is, he is arguably the quintessential B-Movie actor. He is most famous for his leading role in Sam Raimi's breakout Evil Dead trilogy, where he played the unlikely hero Ash. Despite his performances, especially in the third movie Army of Darkness, stealing the show, for one reason or another Campbell has never managed to follow his good friend Mr. Raimi to the heights of Hollywood stardom, a few ventures into TV land with the title role in the short-lived Adventures of Brisco County Jr. and a recurring supporting role in Xena: Warrior Princess are as close to stardom as Campbell has mustered in a career spent largely as the sole draw in Direct-to-Video Horror and Sci Fi movies.
Despite his lack of mainstream success, Campbell has attained a fairly rabid and loyal fanbase, in part due to the fact he is often the best thing about movies he stars in, being a charismatic, quick witted and fairly handsome leading man, but certainly for myself a big part of his appeal is the fact that he doesn't take himself too seriously. It would be easy to see a man with such a career could be bitter, but Campbell seems to take everything with a good dose of humour. His autobiography 'If Chins Could Kill' is a fantastic read that paints him as someone who is more than aware he isn't making high brow movies, but doesn't see why he shouldn't have fun with it.
My Name is Bruce sees 4 standard idiot teenagers unwittingly unleash an ancient Chinese demon while clowning around in a graveyard. The one survivor, Jeff (Taylor Sharpe) happens to be a phenomenal fan of Bruce Campbell, and as the demon, named Guan Di, starts to behead half of the small town of Gold Lick, Jeff comes up with a master plan to stop the demon.
Meanwhile, we find Bruce Campbell on the set of his latest classic 'CaveAlien 2'. After the shoot we discover Campbell is recently divorced, his agent (Ted Raimi) is sleeping with his ex-wife, and he spends his nights flooring bottles of booze in a trailer.
Campbell is dragged from this existence by Jeff, who kidnaps his idol and brings him to Gold Lick, as he believes Bruce is the only one who can stop Guan Di. Believing this is all a set up for a movie, Campbell plays along, but is realistically more interested in sleazing on Jeff's mum Kelly (Grace Thorsen) and soon finds himself out of his depth in his battle with a very real monster.
In general the idea behind the movie, washed up star is mistaken for his most famous character and drafted in to save the day, is workable. Certainly for fans of Campbell, litter it with some in-jokes and plenty of references to his past works and it should be a goer, correct? Sadly, My Name is Bruce manages to spectacularly nose-dive, making a complete waste of Campbell, Thorsen and every fan who has settled down to watch this movie's time.
As I say, the premise of Campbell being kidnapped to save the day, before finding himself out of his depth, is a fun one. It also would have provided an interesting twist on the Evil Dead movies, where Ash is a little different character wise in each movie, but he always follows the path of a reluctant hero who ends up saving the day. Watching Campbell reluctantly become an already reluctant hero could have been a fun, and fairly original, little plot point, yet despite almost all of the film's publicity referring to Campbell being mistaken for Ash, it honestly never actually happens in the film.
The hero status Campbell is thrust into also grates a little. It's never seen how Jeff manages to convince the entire town, except his mother, that Campbell is a potential saviour. It's a ridiculous premise, but not even one that is ever made humorous to the point that you can forgive it. Nobody else in Gold Lick actually seems to have seen a Campbell movie, they just seem to have went on Jeff's word that Bruce will save the day, they aren't portrayed as particularly idiotic, so it just doesn't sit right. I actually think My Name is Bruce would have benefitted from a Galaxy Quest like fan convention setting where it actually is believable a room full of people could see Campbell as their saviour.
The film also manages to completely misfire with any attempt at in-jokes. An early scene sees Jeff try to woo a girl by quoting Campbell pick up lines from various movies, which could have worked had it been deployed better, but instead just comes across cringeworthy. At one point I actually pre-empted, and was looking forward to, a joke that they stunningly never delivered. At one stage the mayor declares that Bruce will know what the best weapon to go monster hunting with so as the locals gather round to hear his answer, it becomes clear Bruce doesn't have a clue about guns. This scene BEGS for him to recall his 'This is my boom-stick...' speech where he highlights the details of his shotgun but instead it opts for a limp joke where he mutters incoherently and picks up the nearest pistol. In a film crafted effectively with the purpose of being an in-joke, one neat line about having made a film in Bulgaria aside, My Name is Bruce never delivers any witty or remotely clever nods to Campbell's filmography or even B-Movies in general. Instead we have utterly lame gags about urinating in beer bottles and tired racial stereotype clichés. There are some out of place musical interludes to try and move the story along, at least that's what they want you to think, to me it simply seems a dull attempt to make the film feel a bit more unique and culty. Realistically it's just lame.
Arguably the film's biggest crime is its astounding misuse of Bruce Campbell. This film could quite easily have been made based around a fictional movie star, because regardless of what his character is called, Campbell is not playing Bruce Campbell. In both his book and any interviews I have seen with Bruce, one of his most endearing features is his ability to not take himself or his work too seriously and actually have a laugh at his own expense. The problem here is that My Name is Bruce is written in such a horrendously infantile manner that it takes advantage of Campbell's self-deprecating humour to put him in scenarios that just aren't funny. Oh look, he's a cocky, sleazy film star his co-stars moan about behind his back - how original, but he's drinking bourbon from a dog bowl because his career is rubbish - incredible! The reason this movie appealed to me was that I wanted to see Bruce Campbell, or at least a somewhat an exaggerated depiction of him, instead he's stuck playing a tired cliché of a washed up movie star. ANY B-Movie actor could have played this role. Hell, when you take the rather out of place Oriental villain I wouldn't be surprised if this was originally planned as American Ninja: The Rebirth until even David Bradley and Michael Dudikoff passed it up.
It should tell you something that with that said Campbell is still essentially the film's only highlight, and even he is far from on form. All in all there were 2 moments Campbell really really shone in, the aforementioned Bulgaria line, and a scene in which he clearly sees a character walking away as the town feel he has disappeared. The facial expressions here as he hopelessly tries to explain what has happened are classic Campbell, realistically about the only time he really gets to show some of the character that has made him a fan favourite.
The only other members of the cast really given anything to work with are Sharpe and Thorsen, the former comes across as far too whiny and irritating, the latter fares slightly better, the lady is easy on the eye, but despite a fairly lacklustre writing job she manages to bring a bit of character and sarcastic humour to the film, doing her best to fill the void left by Campbell portraying a douche.
The film's production values are gutter, however this is the one failing of the film I am actually willing to forgive. I have actually heard a lot of Campbell's more sycophantic fans actually proclaim that the film was intentionally bad, and while I don't believe for a minute anyone actually sets out to write a worthless script, hokey effects can add a bit of character as long as they are employed properly. The Guan Di costume is probably the most expensive effect, and at best I could describe it as a bad early 1990s Power Rangers villain, but it actually serves its purpose, and actually raises more of a smile than any of the jokes in the movie.
I don't normally come down so hard on what is an out and out B-Movie, but I really am this movie's target audience, hell, I'm one of the few people that actually endured the thoroughly diabolical Evil Dead: Hail to the King videogame, and it's an insulting, parasitic trick to suck some more money out of Campbell's loyal fans. It really is without redeeming factor, and is quite easily the worst movie that Campbell has ever made (and that's saying something) and really doesn't offer anything, to anyone. Stick to the Evil Dead trilogy and Bubba Ho-Tep, all this will do is sour Campbell in your eyes.
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1408 (DVD)
by GentleGenius
RELEASED: 2007, Cert. 15
RUNNING TIME: Approx. 105 mins
DIRECTOR: Mikael Håfström
PRODUCER: Lorenzo di Bonaventura
SCREENPLAY: Matt Greenberg, Scott Alexander & Larry Karaszewski
MUSIC: Gabriel Yared
MAIN CAST:-
John Kusack as Mike Enslin
Samuel L ... Jackson as Gerald Olin
Mary McCormack as Lily
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FILM ONLY REVIEW
Adapted from a Stephen King short story, 1408 begins with supernatural novelist Mike Enslin hunting down material for his next book. Even though he writes stories of hauntings and other creepy phenomena, he actually is very sceptical towards the subject of all things that go bump in the night.
When he reads an anonymous postcard he'd received which advises not to enter Room 1408, Mike hunts through a collection of newspapers on microfiche at a library, discovering that Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel in New York is reputed to be haunted, so he makes his way there and tries to book the room for just one night.
Once at The Dolphin, the manager, Gerald Olin, tries his damndest to dissuade Mike from staying in the room by relating tales of horror as to what various fates befell other guests who had occupied it. Mike insists, and once inside of Room 1408, some very weird things start to happen.
That sets the scene, and as ever, you must watch the film for yourself to discover what it's all about.
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Firstly, I've never read the Stephen King story from which the film of 1408 is adapted, so I am unable to comment on how close it sticks to King's original publication, although I can say that from start to finish, the whole thing struck me as being very 'King-esque'.
Straight away, I really didn't like the character of Mike Enslin. I also didn't feel any rumblings of expectancy or sense that I was being pulled into a creepy horror/thriller type of movie. There was something about the way 1408 opened and set the general scene which I found not unconvincing exactly, but it lacked atmosphere for me and I didn't feel spooked in the slightest.
However, overall I feel that John Cusack played his quite demanding role very well. Throughout most of the scenes he is the only character present, and that gives a very one-man-band stance to his performance. The rest of the main cast also acted their parts more than adequately, but the input required from them was minimal compared to that of Cusack.
I can't say that I was especially aware of the film's musical score aside from a smattering of light percussive sounds. During 1408 whilst Mike Enslin is in his room, there are intermittent blasts of The Carpenters' 'We've Only Just Begun' which for the most part I found irritating, yet there was also something borderline amusing about its inclusion.
1408 relies on a pretty much even mix of dialogue and special effects and as far as the dialogue is concerned, it does improve as the film progresses, but I found certain of the special effects - although quite good here and there - to be way, way over the top to the point of ridiculousness.
This is one of those Stephen King works which, when put into film format, has a very definite aura of the man's writing style about it although on this particular occasion, I feel that there was a massive overkill on the way the supernatural/creepy parts were created and put across. I'd much rather have seen something far more subtle, with little or no reliance on special effects and for the weird happenings to have been presented from a psychological rather than a physical aspect. Bearing in mind the Stephen King aspect though, some of his stories are a bit over the top when it comes to all things on the dark side, so maybe this just happens to be one of them and the direction/production team quite likely could have been doing no more than putting King's words and thoughts into visual action.
I personally didn't find 1408 in the slightest bit scary, although I did jump a little once or twice, simply due to a couple of things happening unexpectedly and rather loudly. I also felt there to be quite a strong element of tongue-in-cheek present and that diluted any potential for being spooked out of my skin. There is one part in 1408 where my anxiety levels rose to respectably high levels, but it had nothing whatsoever to do with the supernatural aspect. It also has to be said that this particular scene is a modification of one used before in another Stephen King story, which a film was also made out of.....that one being much more convincing and 'edge of your seat' to watch than it is in 1408.
Although I happily watched 1408 from beginning to end without my boredom levels making me want to reach for the 'off' switch or throw a heavy object at the screen, I felt it overall lacked sparkle and the scene wasn't initially set in a particularly eerie way. This really is a film which, in my opinion, places far too much emphasis on some quite over the top special effects and not enough concentration is given to subtlety which I feel would have been of great benefit had the buildup been scary and creepy.
The best part of 1408 for me was definitely John Cusack's acting, and it was probably that on its own which held my attention rather than what was actually going on around him and happening to him.
I very much doubt that I'll want to see 1408 again as overall I found it a bit of a let-down, but I'm sure it would appeal to people who like a lot of action, heavy-duty special effects and a horror/thriller film which isn't scary enough overall to stop you sleeping, be scared to answer the phone, step into the shower, open that dark fusty cupboard or turn the lights off.
At the time of writing, 1408 can be purchased from Amazon as follows:-
New: from £2.67 to £19.99
Used: from 94p to £6.59
A delivery charge of £1.26 should be added to the above figures.
Thanks for reading!
~~ Also published on Ciao under my CelticSoulSister user name ~~
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