Movie Review: Black Sheep

From New Zealand comes this horror/comedy from director Jonathan King. It tells the story of a young man returning home to his family's sheep farm, only to find out that his brother authorized genetic experiments on the helpless woolmakers. A tale of nature gone bad, where there's genetic experiments, there's zombie action waiting to happen, and this time it's zombie sheep! The film was impressively shot, hard not to be with the gorgeous New Zealand countryside serving as the backdrop. But, overall, the film wasn't nearly as funny, or scary as I had hoped. While it tried to keep up with previous horror/comedy masterpieces like Dead Alive, Black Sheep felt a tad uninspired. For me, it just wound up being an alright movie. The creature effects were nice, and there was some tasty gore but in the end, I wasn't blown away. Black Sheep is worth a look if you're hard up for a Saturday night flick, but don't expect a laugh out loud scarefest. Black Sheep grazes **1/2 out of *****.

DVD Review: Skinwalkers

How can a movie with such a cool poster be bad? Well, while it's not exactly bad, it could have been sooo much better. SkinWalkers tells the tale of two types of werewolves, the ones who like killing and maiming and the ones who want their curse to be lifted. There's a small boy, a half-breed, who holds the key to lifting the curse, or at least that's what the "prophecy" states. When the boy turns 13 during the time of the red full moon, he will begin the process of cleaning up all of werewolfdom. Needless to say, the bad werewolves want the kid dead. We're left with an action-packed movie filled with gun-toting werewolves, one group trying to save and hide the boy and the other tracking and trying to kill him. Overall, the movie was just a standard action film with some bad werewolf makeup thrown in for good measure. Never scary or gory, it lost its horror element from the beginning. Don't pick this film based on its werewolf theme, because you'll be sadly disappointed. But, if you like guns blazing and only a few people getting hit, then you'll enjoy SkinWalkers. For me, I give it ** out of *****.

DVD Review: Vacancy

The title of this one says it all. Vacant is exactly the look you'll have on your face during the 85 minute crapfest that is Vacancy. The plot of this film is the only thing it has going for it, and it's pretty lame. As a quarrelsome couple begins to have car trouble, along a long, dark stretch of god-knows-where blacktop, they're forced to stop into a nicely lit gas station. The kindly gentleman there fixes (wink, wink) their car and it only goes about two miles before it dies for good (the same can't be said about the movie, aaarggh). As the insults fly, the couple heads back to the hotel right next to the gas station. While there, the shady innkeeper provides them with a gloomy room. The damn room looks like someone died in there. Ooops, someone did! Not only that, but our moronic leading duo, played by Luke Wilson and Kate Beckinsale discover that their room is actually used to make snuff films. They find out because video tapes are left in their room. Oh, the psychological terror! What happens next is neither exciting, thrilling or scary, but it did cause me to a bad case of gas (probably out of boredom). The stunning climax of this movie is one you'll never wish you saw coming and if Wilson's acting in the final ten minutes isn't some of the most over-the-top crappiness ever caught on celluloid then I'm a monkey's uncle. This film was appropriately directed by a guy with the first name, Nimrod. No joke. Vancancy fails to check in with only * out of *****. Run, don't walk away from this crappy big Hollywood piece of poop.