"Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom" Provides Halloween Fun

How on Earth does Aardman do it? I know stop motion is the sort of art form that can only be handled by the most patient of artists, but the more I see of it over the years, the more I admire it. This is especially true of Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom, the third movie in the Shaun the Sheep franchise, which not only retains its technical marvel but remains as funny and engaging as ever. Think about it: the way stop motion works is an elaborate setup that means slightly moving character models, changing mouths, and making sure the lighting doesn’t melt the clay. On average, the studio can get a minute's worth of usable footage every day (and God help you if you can’t use that minute of footage).

Now, that is impressive, but now look at Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom—a movie where our sheep heroes accidentally turn the farmer into a sasquatch—and the process becomes even crazier. This is a franchise that relies on visual gags to the point that dialogue is excised from the final product (outside of some grunts and basic whistles). Not only does the studio have to make a movie where they can only use a minute of produced footage a day (if everything goes smoothly), but they have to make everything have comedic visual timing perfectly because there’s no witty British dialogue to fall back on.

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is probably their best one: when prized pumpkins accidentally get destroyed, Shaun creates a potion to make a new patch grow radically fast so that everyone can compete in the Halloween pumpkin contest. As mentioned before, this potion gets in the hands of the farmer and turns him into a hairy beast. Not only does that put him at risk of being chased down by the townspeople, but (more importantly) it makes asking the vet, whom he has a crush on, out on a date considerably more difficult. It’s just another big-screen day in the life of the sheep of Mossy Bottom.

While I have a hard time understanding why someone wouldn’t like this franchise, the safest evaluation of Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is that if you enjoy the series, you will enjoy this. Thankfully, if you aren’t aware of who Shaun is, the movie is extremely friendly to newcomers, and considering how few family-friendly Halloween movies are released, this is about as fun as they come (and has smarter humor than Hocus Pocus). I know the sheep is not as popular in America as Wallace and Gromit (whom he first appeared alongside), but he is no less charming, and there is something great about a movie where everyone of all ages, different languages, and different religions can all sit down and laugh at the same jokes. I love watching these (I’m just glad I don’t have to make them).