By M.V. Moorhead
Spooky movie season is fast approaching. This weekend sees the opening of a new version of Resident Evil while the shock-horror flick Verity is due the first weekend in October.
But for those of us who might prefer a gentler, less gruesome creepshow, this weekend also offers Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom. Rated PG for “mildly scary action,” this splendidly ridiculous new stop-motion saga is from Aardman, makers of the Wallace and Gromit films and other works of animated brilliance.
This third Shaun the Sheep feature has a Wellesian sci-fi/horror plot. The title ovine, aided by Bitzer the dog and other residents of Mossy Bottom Farm as well as a sympathetic veterinarian, must come to the rescue of The Farmer, who has been transformed into a hirsute abomination through his accidental exposure to a chemical growth accelerant intended for the pumpkins Shaun is surreptitiously growing.
This involves extracting The Farmer from the hold of a cargo ship and concocting an antidote, as well as fending off a not-very-intimidating pitchfork- and sickle-wielding mob. The visual references range from Psycho to Frankenstein. Like Wile E. Coyote, Shaun is a wordless character; he baaaas at times but does not speak. The other characters converse in an indistinct nattering and mumbling, with the only recognizable vocalizations being monosyllables like “Hey!” and “Oh!”
With the exception of a few songs on the soundtrack – including The Automatic’s excellent “Monster” – the Shaun movies are, for all intents and purposes, silent comedies, with Shaun as the Keatonesque, stoic-yet-determined hero. Part of what makes these movies so invigorating is that Shaun is a sheep only in the literal sense, not in the figurative. He’s not a conformist, not a follower of the flock.
