DISAPOINTED BY THE KILLER SHEEP

Saw the Godmonster of Indian Flats and I’m disappointed. Yes it was weird in a very special 70’s way and yes it did have an 8 ½ foot tall bipedal Sheep – but the sheep was incidental to the whole thing. Really you could have done the whole film with out it being in it for a minute. The film had something to do with conservation or exploitation or society or something. I suspect that the director was trying to do a real movie like they show on the Indie film channel all the time. Why he popped in the sheep isn’t clear- unless he couldn’t get what little funding he obviously got unless he had it. (“It’ll have a monster” “here’s a check”)

It opens with a young sheep herder (Shepherd? Whatever) getting a lift into Reno and winning big. Then he, wearing a sheep skin vest of all things that seems weird for some reason, falls in with a fast crowd. They drive him up to some old mining down that runs on nostalgia from the Comstock days. He gets pocked picked by a hooker and then beaten up by the local law - they seem to be in on all this.

So then in a jump cut worthy of the master of the “huh- what the hell is this?” jump cut Coleman Francis – we find the young Shepherd being driven back home by some professor type. It turns out he lives near here, so how come he didn’t know about the place he got rolled in? So what with all the foo-fa earlier? Blessed if I know.

So, weary, aching and somewhat drunk, he goes in and sits in the manger with his sheep. They had earlier stated he was Basque rather than Scottish so none of those more disturbing rumors about what Scots do to sheep would come to mind.

In the middle of the night are bright lights, something happens and a sheep gives birth to what looks like a large slab of uncooked raw beef that breathes. The next morning the Professor and his pretty assistant (she and the Shepherd will later spend most of the rest of the film boinking) arrive see the beef and take to the lab where they spend pretty much the rest of the movie growing it until it becomes the 8 ½ foot tall bi-pedal sheep.

Meantime the rest of the cast are off doing another story involving the mayor who runs the town with an iron will and a representative of a mining company seeking to buy up mining rights. Most of the movie is about this. Yes it’s a weird film but not in the manner the lurid cover led you to imagine it. I wanted Mutant Sheep business and I get some stoned allegory for most of the film until the Sheep breaks out.

And the Mutant Sheep is one of those more sinned against than sinning types – he kills like one person and scares some kids and later he dances with the prof’s pretty assistant . And you know, this has been done since god damn Frankenstein, in the damn 30’s for Pete’s sake. Can we once, just once have a monster who having been deeply wronged (I’ll give you that much of a humanizing touch) decides to just take as many down with him as he can in revenge against the world. Just a thought.

So the Sheep – not an impressive piece of costuming I have to say – it could be why they don’t have him in the film a lot – wanders around, get captured – nobody else dies in that, monster’s a bit of whimp if you ask me. Then the mayor in a speech announces that while the towns people did not sell their mining shares to the rep’s company, he, the mayor, after buying same rights from the townsfolk. he has sold the rights to the same company.

A riot breaks out. You are not sure what happens to any of the cast except for the sheep who was in a cage in a truck that falls down a small cliff and then explodes burning the sheep. We just don’t see what happens to the others, I’m not sure if this is on purpose or if the director just ran out of film.

The last shot has the mayor losing it on the podium and laughing and smoke rising from the fire. Meantime sheep are grazing on the grass (it’s a gas) and this smoke comes up. Earlier the professor said that these jets of gas could have caused the mutation. It’s supposed to be a spooky ending but seeing as the first bipedal sheep needed weeks of round the clock care in what looked liked a sheep premature infant/ Oxygen tent, you are willing to take your chances.

In the end – too much other stuff, not enough killer mutant sheep. I'd have had at least a flock of the damn things and have someone say "I'm sick to death of these motherf##king Giant Mutant Killer Bipedal Sheep in this Motherf##king town." Well maybe not. But I would have the mayor try to get the national guard, realize he'd have to say "Giant Mutant Bipedal Sheep" out loud to a stranger and hang up the phone.