Fans of cult classic New Zealand horror Black Sheep will be surprised to discover the bonkers gore-fest is officially getting a sequel after almost 20 years. According to Deadline, original director and star Jonathan King and Nathan Meister, respectively, are returning for more of the horror-comedy that answered the question of what would happen if a bunch of sheep turned into bloodthirsty creatures long before The Boys offered up their take on the idea.
For those unfamiliar with the original, Black Sheep took the idea of genetic experiments gone wrong and added a touch of low-budget absurdity into the mix. The end result was a movie that followed Henry Oldfield (Meister), who, while dealing with his phobia-level fear of sheep, becomes caught up in a horrifying nightmare of the wooly kind. What begins as odd behavior among the flocks very quickly becomes something more sinister as the sheep population takes a liking to human flesh and embarks on a chaotic, hilarious, and bloody rampage that was always going to find the film landing in the cult classic category.
Black Sheep 2 will reportedly begin filming in spring 2025, and according to details revealed in the announcement will “follow a young scientist who is convinced that a dangerous new pathogen threatens the population and tracks it back to her hometown – which is located in the shadow of the remote sheep station where the macabre events of the original Black Sheep unfolded.”
Black Sheep’s Cult Classic Status Has Plenty of Sequel Potential to Tap
Surprisingly, Black Sheep was a hit with critics, and still holds a Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score of 71%. While it is unusual for a campy B-movie to earn such praise, it was entirely through embracing the completely bonkers plot that the movie succeeded. The only issue was that some regular viewers didn’t quite get the joke, landing it a divided 51% Popcornmeter score with many citing its low-budget roots as the main reason. However, that certainly didn’t make it a…baaad film.
Despite its middling box office performance—grossing just $5 million globally on a limited release—the film found its audience when landing on home video. Just like many other horror movies before it, the popularity of the grisly movie was propelled by festival appearances and word of mouth – the kind of thing that has seen movies like the Terrifier franchise go from potential bargain basement rejects to blockbuster chart-toppers.
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Being a New Zealand-based movie, Black Sheep had some real top-level practical effects at its disposal thanks to enlisting the help of the Weta Workshop. If the name sounds familiar, that is probably because they are most famous for bringing the world of J. R. R. Tolkein to life in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. While Black Sheep did not have sweeping fantasy landscapes, the mutated sheep were pretty solid for their time, and, as always, because they were impressive at the time, they remain watchable now.
Fans of Black Sheep will be pleased to know that a 4K UHD Blu-ray release of the movie is being planned, and is likely to precede the release of the new film.
- Release Date
- September 10, 2006
- Director
- Jonathan King
- Cast
- Nathan Meister , Peter Feeney , Danielle Mason , Tammy Davis , Oliver Driver , Tandi Wright
- Runtime
- 87
- Writers
- Jonathan King
- Tagline
- There are 40 million sheep in New Zealand … and they’re pissed off!