The opening sets the table for a Halloween-themed affair, complete with sly cultural references to the 1980s and sight gags galore.
Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom
The film opens Friday, September 18, only in movie theaters, via GKids Films.
The opening moments play as though Aardman will be revisiting the monster-themed horror-rific pleasures of Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005).
Instead, their third feature film revolving around the titular sheep, following Shaun the Sheep Movie (2015) and A Shaun the Sheep Movie: Farmageddon (2019), swiftly returns to calm, pleasant, non-horror days at Mossy Bottom Farm, where Shaun and his fellow sheep are secretly tending to their own private pumpkin patch, hidden away behind a wall, and far from the prying eyes of the often-clueless Farmer.
Truthfully, Farmer is preoccupied with his own secret: His undisclosed adoration for the comely town Vet. He has purchased tickets to an upcoming Halloween event with the intention of inviting her, but is reluctant to do so because he is self-conscious about his thinning hairline.
The solution appears to arrive by accident -- his. He stumbles (quite literally) upon the sheep's private pumpkin patch, inadvertently destroying the crop, to the sorrow of everyone, including Shaun's cousin Timmy, the smallest sheep in the flock, who bursts into pitiable tears. What to do, what to do?
Never fear: Shaun follows instructions in a book titled MAD SCIENTIST, and eventually whips up a potion that makes a single seed blossom into an entire pumpkin patch overnight! Everyone is happy, especially Timmy.
Unbeknownst to the flock, however, sheepdog Bitzer discovers the mysterious potion, which Shaun had poured into a bottle of a hair-growth product that Farmer trashed when it didn't work. Farmer doesn't recognize the bottle when Bitzer unknowingly gives it to him, applies it liberally to his head, and voila! He has a full head of hair! He is very happy.
Unbeknownst to Farmer, however, the sheep discover that all the pumpkins they just harvested are continuing to grow. And grow. And grow.
Shaun the Sheep first appeared in A Clean Shave (1995), the third short film in the Wallace & Gromit series; his character was then spun-off into the long-running Shaun the Sheep, which began in 1997.
What's especially lovely about Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, is that it retains all the virtues that made the first two films in the series distinctive: the genuine affection between the sheep and Farmer, the growing respect between the sheep and Bitzer, and the near-complete absence of dialogue. Indeed, the sheep don't need words to communicate with each other; their body language and 'bleats' are sufficient.
Between the sheep and Bitzer, they communicate by listening to Bitzer's barks and growls, and indicate agreement (or not) by their bleats and actions. Farmer is a bit more dense; he's not unintelligent, but he is a bit slow in his thinking, and doesn't always reason out his actions.
A continuing feature of the Wallace and Gromit shorts and features, and the Shaun the Sheep series and Chicken Run films, is that technology is inherently attractive, yet often has unintended consequences. That's true in the latest film as well, as technology used with good intentions -- quick growing pumpkins, quick growing hair -- quickly goes awry, leaving the hapless victims to try to return the genie to the bottle, as it were.
Filled with all sorts of gags -- verbal, audio, and sight -- and many LOL moments, I love that there are no 'cheap' gags. Instead, the film combines childlike wonder with adult amusement in abundance, to the merriment of all.