The Beast of Mossy Bottom Review

In the film’s intertwined “B” plot, the Farmer has a secret crush on the local Vet (Nina Sosanya), but he’s feeling embarrassed by the retreating creep of his hairline. He also seeks a quick remedy when he stumbles upon a bottle of old hair growth (newly filled with the excess of Shaun’s serum), and decides to use it to get confident enough to ask the lady doc out. You can imagine the hairy mess that ensues.

The strength of Mark Burton and Giles Pilbrow’s screenplay, and most Shaun and Aardman features for that matter, is that each film’s increasingly dire situations don’t come from overcomplicated plots; rather, they derive from the escalation of the characters’ actions and the domino effect, which makes for simple narratives. Here, that translates into a movie younger viewers can easily follow while still appealing to older viewers with its classic movie underpinnings for the Halloween season. Plus, the writers and animators have ambitiously filled every frame with horror cinema visual easter eggs, endless sight gags, and great character performances. The Beast of Mossy Bottom is almost dialogue-free, but it all works because first-time feature directors Steve Cox and Matthew Walker have kept the core narrative clear and loaded the film with generational gags that cleverly reference today’s horrors as well as bits from James Whale’s Frankenstein and Steven Spielberg’s Jaws.

It’s also appreciated that the directors have expanded the farm to extend into the unsettling woods of Mossingham, added that set piece-worthy windmill, folded in the expanded Mossingham citizenry, and included a whole sea-set action sequence. That level of scale for The Beast of Mossy Bottom keeps the pokey farm from feeling too small for a cinematic story, and continues to push the limits of the stop-motion wizardry of the Aardman Animations team. Speaking of which, the animators have outdone themselves by including massive amounts of moving hair to their animation repertoire as the Farmer goes full Sasquatch; they also weave in spritzing water and aquatic critters. It’s easy to forget, and take for granted, that every single character and locale is handmade and individually manipulated by animators, making this another stunning achievement and demonstration of the studio’s patience and craftsmanship.

Special kudos also go to Natalie Holt’s score, which does a tremendous amount of emotional heavy lifting in what is essentially a silent film. She and her orchestra land jokes with their flourishes à la Carl Stalling’s Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies compositions, or wholesale create emotional moments that they mine with notes in between the character grunts or gibberish talk.

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is a great addition to the Aardman farm trilogy and to their larger production history. It’s clearly made by a team of silent-era horror cinema nerds and some of the quickest punsters in the business. It’s heartening to see the studio’s continuing commitment to the stop-motion technique while honoring what’s come before in the horror genre. Though it may not be as slick or elevated as Wallace & Gromit: Vengeance Most Fowl, The Beast of Mossy Bottom deserves a theatrical watch and to become a future Halloween classic.