Summer is over and Halloween is on the way … not for a fair bit, of course, but if all the UK’s Halloween merch and continuing pop culture content is up to the standard of this film, then no one is going to be complaining. This is the third in Aardman’s thoroughly enjoyable and cleverly written Shaun the Sheep stop-motion franchise of what are effectively silent movies, with a few intelligible words. It is the story of gutsy and heroic sheep involved in amazing adventures in the sleepy village of Mossy Bottom, starring characters who first appeared in the Wallace and Gromit short film A Close Shave.
This one is another excellent family film, crammed as ever with top visual gags, great throwaway references and, of course, a homemade Heath Robinson contraption, so often to be found in Aardman films. We get nods to The Archers, The Wombles and The Simpsons; there’s a wacky chase worthy of What’s Up, Doc?; a homage to the notorious waxing scene from Judd Apatow’s The 40-Year-Old Virgin; and even what appears to be a brief visual walk-on for George Bernard Shaw as Bigfoot. As ever with Shaun the Sheep and Aardman Animations generally, the standard of writing is extremely high and the script here, from Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow, sparkles with good-natured fun. One high-street hairdressing salon in the wool-producing district where it’s set is called Barber Black Sheep – and if no real-life shop has stolen this joke yet, they ought to.
A klutzy, balding sheep farmer (voiced by John Sparkes), on whose premises Shaun and the gang are to be found, is poignantly in love with a visiting vet (voiced by Nina Sosanya); he longs to invite her to a local country music hoedown, but is shy and moreover ashamed of being follicularly challenged. As for the sheep themselves, they are secretly cultivating a pumpkin patch to harvest a bunch of scary jack-o-lanterns for their forthcoming Halloween frolics. The clumsy big-booted farmer ruins them all, and the resourceful sheep turn to the dark magic of technology and sinister GM techniques (as discovered in a children’s science book) to grow supersized new pumpkins from a rescued seed. But some of their occult new miracle growth-boost liquid finds its way into the farmer’s baldness-cure bottle.
The pitchfork-wielding villagers of Mossy Bottom are hilariously stunned at the terrifying appearance of a rampaging, hairy beast who has been spotted in the outlying fields and woodlands at the very moment that the farmer himself has mysteriously disappeared. Has the beast somehow kidnapped or eaten the farmer? It is a nightmarish mystery that will need every ounce of Shaun and his pals’ courage and ingenuity to sort out, not to mention that of the vet, who uses a hi-tech DNA machine to examine the genetic provenance of a piece of the beast’s fur she has managed to snip off.
It is a love story of sorts, perhaps a little like that of Beauty and the Beast, but about two people who for most the story’s running time don’t know that they are going to be in love. As for the sheep, their faces convey amazingly distinct expressions and moods with just a few deft movements. It’s sharp, smart, funny and precise; there is nothing woolly about it.
• Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is out on 17 September in Australia, and on 18 September in the UK and US.
