SHEEP SKIN (2013)

Sheep Skin (2013)

Summary: Sheep Skin is a gritty and realistic take on the werewolf sub-genre. The film centers around a group of friends in a punk rock band who kidnap a business man because they believe he is actually a werewolf hiding in plain sight. The group takes the man to a nearby warehouse where they have one night to prove their suspicious are true. As the night goes on, tensions mount and the group begins to question their own motives. Are they right about the man's true identity or have the made a terrible and deadly mistake?

I love what this movie was attempting to do. It was a pretty clever trick on the typical werewolf movie. In your standard werewolf movie, it's normally a struggle within the main character because he/she finds out they are a werewolf and don't know how to cope with it. In this case, it's the punk rock band (whose leader's sister was killed by the werewolf) who put everything together and confront/kidnap Todd, the business man. They take him to a warehouse where they try to get him to admit he is a werewolf. They put him through standard werewolf testing like holding silver up to his skin and it has no effect on him. Schafer, the band's leader, begins to doubt whether or not his theory is right which leads to a rift in the group. This leads to fighting between the band members, a few side characters being killed, and eventually the werewolf showing up (I will not say whether it was Todd or someone else).

There were a few things about this movie that rubbed me the wrong way. My biggest issue being that for wanting to take a new spin on the werewolf genre, they missed some of the basics of the werewolf mythology. Mainly, how to become a werewolf. The only way to become a werewolf is to be bitten and/or scratched by a werewolf and survive the attack. If a person is killed by a werewolf, they are dead. They do not come back to life as a werewolf. In this movie however, they are of the belief that a werewolf works the same way as a zombie does. Schafer wasted a silver bullet by shooting every single person who was killed by the wolf; presumably to make sure that they didn't come back which wouldn't have happened anyway. A mistake that would cost him in the end.

Now for this being a low budget movie, I was surprised by how well it was done. The story for the most part was good and very easy to follow. I wish it built a little bit more tension throughout, but I guess it is what it is. I must admit however that although the story itself was good and built up nicely, the ending was a bit disappointing. It was predictable and felt very rushed. 

For the most part, the acting was done very well. I say for the most part because I wasn't as sold on the performance of Todd. This could be part of the reason that there wasn't as much tension built as I would have liked. He was very soft spoken throughout majority of the movie and showed very little emotion for someone who was just abducted and is being accused of being both a murderer and a werewolf.

With all of that being said, I am giving this movie the benefit of the doubt. It was made on a low budget as is apparent by the 2 miniscule set locations and the fact that there are only 7 actors in the whole movie. So going off what they had to work with, and despite my negative comments, I did enjoy this movie. Yeah, it could have been better but so could just about every movie I've ever seen. At the end of the day, the writers and directors wanted to make something catchy and original and they succeeded.

                          
Reviewed by Bobby