Sheep Skin

4 punk rockers kidnap a man believing he is a werewolf who killed one of the band member's sister. The majority of the film is seeking to determine if he is a werewolf. The question that arose though is are humans less monstrous than a beast? You decide. Nothing fancy or special in this low budget film.

I love films that take place in one location/room. I don't know why, just something about it is awesome. I don't spoil anything but this was actually really well done and the acting was good!! My only gripe is that NO, werewolves are NOT in the Bible, and the Matthew 7:15 Quote "...beware wolves in sheep's clothing..." is not literal...it's meant to be just how we use it today, that it's talking about people lying about who they are...this was a huge error that the director must've thought would be edgy, but was totally wrong about. Besides that, I liked it!!!

Within the first 2 minutes I knew this was gonna be amateur. One of the main characters has pictures of his family members facing away from him. The pictures are facing toward visitors. I've worked in many office settings and have never actually seen someone face their family pictures away from them. No one does that. For the director to make such an amateur mistake, it means I should lower my expectations.

Lowering my expectations helped like this movie. There were many flaws: the acting (like another reviewer noted, the bald guy talked way too low and was pretty unconvincing). The unsteady swaying cam was also annoying (it wasn't shaking, just swaying all the time). But it was only made for $25,000 and it had around two set locations and 7 cast members. So I have to give it some leeway. The pacing was good. However, they really could have tried harder to increase the tension, suspense, and mystery.

Personally, I give this guys credit because they were interested in making a good movie and did good with what they had. Way too many indie filmmakers seem like they don't care that there's an audience watching the movie. These guys recognized their limitations. As a result, they made a movie that's worth watching for a fan of werewolf horror films. Nothing groundbreaking. But it wasn't a cliché-filled predictable mess like so many other horror movies. It had some gore but no hot chicks get naked, unfortunately. Recommendation: give this one a shot if you have nothing better to do for 75 minutes. It's one of those "Okay. That was all right", shrug your shoulders type horror movies. I'd like to see more from this director as it looks like he could improve with time and better resources.

The concept of a person being kidnapped, accused of having committed a heinous crime and then interrogated, where the audience is not sure whether that person really is guilty or not, is unfortunately less common in movies than it should be (in my opinion), but it has been done before.

Two great examples are Roman Polanski's DEATH AND THE MAIDEN(1994), where a victim of kidnapping, torture and rape by a South American government interrogates who she believes to be her tormentor, and HARD CANDY (2005) where a precocious 14-year old girl interrogates a sexual predator on whether he killed one of his past victims.

SHEEP SKIN follows this concept but adds potentially a supernatural twist: here, the brother of the victim of a brutal animal attack kidnaps and interrogates a man whom he believes to be a werewolf that killed his sister.

On the face of it, the premise is a little hard to swallow, but writer/director Kurt Spieler skillfully creates a context where not only the idea that a group of people might believe such a thing is rendered plausible, but even some genuine questions arise on whether that might actually be true.

In this kind of a movie, the acting is particularly important because the audience is forced to question the motives of the parties involved. Fortunately, the cast does fine, with the leader of the kidnapping group being the standout.

The story itself has a few twists that complicate matters and keep audience interest. The low budget shows itself only toward the end, but is not too distracting.

Fans of interrogation thrillers and horror films that are different will appreciate this work the most.