'Shaun The Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom' Review: An Evergreen Romp
aardman’s latest Is loads of festive fall fun with genre homages galore
As one of the premiere animation studios, Aardman has given us countless claymation romps, and launched several iconic characters spinning out of the Wallace and Gromit franchise, most notably, Shaun The Sheep, who has become a bonafide star in his own right, starring in his own long running television series, and now, with The Beast of Mossy Bottom, his own feature film trilogy, accompanied as always by his trusty flock.
The Beast of Mossy Bottom is incited by Shaun and the flock attempting to keep their pumpkin patch a secret from their fellow farm-dwellers, The Farmer, and of course, Bitzer the dog. When this precious pumpkin patch is smushed by a series of comically unfortunate events, Shaun, in Victor Frankenstein-esque fashion, concocts an elixir to regrow the pumpkin patch in time for Halloween. Yet, in any good comedy, things go awry, as The Farmer accidentally uses Shaun’s regrowth elixir in place of an anti-baldness cream, then finding his body now engulfed head to toe in a sasquatch-like skin of thick red hair. The inciting action of each of the theatrical Shaun The Sheep installments has revolved around the flock trying to save The Farmer and reinstate status quo, and this time, they race to reverse his monstrous new look, with elements of classic village horror very cleverly homaged throughout.
Despite Aardman’s style being unequivocally ‘British,’ it’s not the regional specificity of a presumptive Northern England farm that keeps us coming back to Shaun and the flock. Perhaps the biggest reason why they have remained so iconic is because of how elemental and pure their stories are. There are few purer cinematic joys than seeing the painstaking claymation work of Aardman, where every bit of physical comedy is subconciously accentuated by the literal physicality of the film’s means of creation. ‘Fish out of water’ comedy has also played a role in the Shaun The Sheep films thus far, finding the comedy inherent in seeing our beloved farm friends in larger than life situations, especially in this Halloween themed setting, which plays host to a vast number of fun genre homages, such as the classic Universal monster films, literally embodying the spirit of Michael Jackson’s Thriller video in both regards, and in any case, all of these influences are sure to garner laughs from audiences of all ages, and for different reasons.
That in of itself is one of the beauties of animation, and that’s something Aardman has always understood, and something I’m glad Beast of Mossy Bottom has not forgotten, especially in an era when it feels like studio animation often falls prey to a great many pop-culture references or voice actors tailored to millennials that may alienate child viewers. I think back to my own experience revisiting Aardman’s Wallace and Gromit specials ahead of 2024’s Vengeance Most Fowl, picking up very clever references to the style of Alfred Hitchcock that I appreciate as a cinematically literate adult, but also appreciated for the tonal and comedic value as a child. This clever, never obvious or showboaty kind of synthesis is, in a nutshell, one of the many things that has kept Aardman atop the animation industry, and beloved by audiences worldwide for decades. It’s hard to imagine even the most jaded of souls not cracking a smile at the sight of the flock’s other standout, Timmy, (star of the Timmy Time spin-off series aimed at pre-schoolers) wielding a chainsaw in Ash Williams fashion, or the flock baa-ing to the tune of a sea shanty. There are a great many brilliant visual gags informed by physical comedy, which seems hardly surprising to say, rather, I say this to make a point of how deep Aardman’s proverbial bag of tricks is.
Composer Natalie Holt steps into the composing role for this film, providing a very dexterous score that evokes the aforementioned homages, but also the inherent jolliness. Though each film of the Shaun The Sheep trilogy has had a different composer, each one still captures the general joviality required to keep up with the flock and their adventures.
The Beast of Mossy Bottom is a film that I can’t write the most in-depth review of, and I don’t mean that in a reductionist sense. There’s only so much written distillation you can do about something so kinetic, visually inventive and flat-out earnest, which is a testament to the incredible claymation filmmaking and comedic instincts of Aardman’s unrivalled animation teams. Though the flock has reached a grand milestone with this trilogy, on top of hundreds of television episodes, their adventures never cease to be the source of many well-earned laughs.