The killer sheep are back, and so is the studio that built them.
Umbrella Entertainment has released the first official trailer for Black Sheeps, writer-director Jonathan King‘s follow-up to his cult 2006 New Zealand horror comedy Black Sheep. Twenty years later, Wētā Workshop, the effects house responsible for the original’s mutant flock, is back to handle the sequel’s creatures practically, building suits, animatronics and prosthetics instead of reaching for digital replacements.
Nathan Meister returns as Henry Oldfield, the series’ sheep-fearing lead, joined by a cast that includes Tabatha Killick, Lucia Davison, Joseph Witkowski, Ian Harcourt, Heather O’Carroll, Paul Waggott and Renaye Tamati. The plot follows a young scientist convinced a dangerous new pathogen is spreading, whose search for its source leads her back to the remote sheep station where the original outbreak began, which, for anyone who remembers how the first film handled zoonotic horror, is exactly the kind of homecoming that shouldn’t end well.
Black Sheeps will have its world premiere at Sitges Film Festival in October before opening in New Zealand theatres on November 12. No U.S. distributor has been confirmed; IFC Films handled the original’s American release, though nothing announced so far says it will return for the sequel.
