Every Kid Deserves A First “Scary” Movie, & Shaun The Sheep Just Made A Perfect One

I’ve always found myself drawn to the horror genre. Even as a kid, I campaigned to watch the scary stuff, lobbying to be allowed in the room when my older brother and his friends sneak-watched Child’s Play and IT. Terrible idea, as it were, because my mom was unfortunately right; I wasn’t ready for horror like that yet, and I may or may not still be mildly terrified of dolls and clowns. ​

So, I have a soft spot for this idea of the on-ramp: a scary movie that strikes the ideal balance between (mostly) delight and am I allowed to be watching this? The sort of movie that lets a kid feel brave but won’t keep them up all night in abject terror. ​

And Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom brings just that. ​

What I really hadn’t given much thought to until I sat down with Steve Cox and Matthew Walker, co-directors of the movie, is that this category is almost empty. Cox told me it came as a surprise to them, too, saying, “In making this film, we realized there aren’t that many Halloween films for families and for kids, because we were trying to find them to use as reference. “How did they do that? Oh, nobody’s done this before.”​

If you think about it for a second, you’ll notice the gap is glaring. Sure, we had Hocus Pocus. The Nightmare Before Christmas. But then there’s a cliff, and on the other side is stuff no 8-year-old has any business watching. Most of us solve this by rewatching the same three spooky-adjacent movies with our kids every year until we can recite them in our sleep.

​Well, we’ve finally got a fresh addition for the rotation because The Beast of Mossy Bottom is about to become a beloved spooky season rewatch. ​

What It Actually Is

​If you’re anything like me, you’ve been watching some form of the Wallace and Gromit franchise for as long as you can remember. This British claymation comedy world, created by Nick Park and produced by Aardman Animations, began back in the late ‘80s with the short film A Grand Day Out. Shaun the Sheep and his fellow ovine cohorts were introduced in 1995 with A Close Shave (which, to this day, has a 100% Rotten Tomatoes score).

This is the third film in Aardman’s Shaun the Sheep family, once again bringing us to the bucolic village of Mossy Bottom to check in with the flock. The oft-befuddled farmer has a budding crush on the local vet, but he’s self-conscious about his balding head. In his distraction, he clumsily destroys the pumpkin patch the flock had been cultivating for their Halloween jack-o'-lanterns.

​Shaun goes full mad scientist to fix it, and as you might expect, it spirals. Shaun’s tinkering gets tangled up in the farmer’s midlife insecurity crisis, and things get… hairy. ​

Who It’s For​

You’re probably wondering where the threshold is here. How young is too young to watch this movie?

Happily, it’s a “horror” movie that really is for all age groups. ​“We set out to design this film for all ages, and we always joke that Shaun the Sheep is for a 4-year-old to a 94-year-old,” Cox shares. “That’s what we’re saying: This film is good for tiny little kids as well as older people.”​

Walker elaborated on how they made the movie with even the youngest audience members in mind. ​“We know the Shaun the Sheep audience starts very young. And now we’re making a Halloween film and we’re playing with horror tropes, but we were very conscious of not being too scary for the younger audience,” he explains. “There’s a little bit of tension and the odd jump scare, but we’re always undercutting it with comedy.” ​

As a mom, I agree. That undercut is the whole trick. Tension builds, and you might see your kid’s shoulders start to creep up toward their ears, but then a sheep will do something remarkably silly or stupid and the air goes out of the room in the best way. ​(Added reassurance: They test-screened it with kids!)​

What Else Parents Should Know​

Make no mistake, this movie is for our kids... but it’s also for us. ​

For starters, the references are stacked. I mean, it opens with the Thriller dance sequence. There’s a Simpsons nod here, a 40-Year-Old Virgin gag there, Hammer horror and the Universal monsters running underneath the whole thing. I feel like I need to watch it again just to catch all the Easter eggs. ​

And the slapstick is great. I mean, your 6-year-old will obviously think it’s hilarious, but you’re even likely to get some genuine spontaneous laughter from your surly 14-year-old. Everyone will be cracking up at the same moments for slightly different reasons. It’s just silly and so gloriously deadpan British.

Of course, it’s worth reminding you that this is a movie with effectively no dialogue. That’s kind of the shtick with Shaun! It makes it all the more impressive how much these movies grab and hold kids’ attention. But I was curious: since this particular Shaun the Sheep film moves into horror, was it easier or harder to commit to the genre’s sense of dread without dialogue?

“If we were making The Quiet Place with Shaun where nobody speaks, it would have been easy. No, the fact that Shaun doesn’t speak is always a challenge to deliver a story that’s understandable,” Cox says, pointing out that they have to ensure the movie is engaging enough that the audience follows along and doesn’t get distracted.

Walker and Cox credit much of the emotional arc's success to the film’s fantastic animators.

Cozycore, Confirmed

I’m so pleased this happened to be the first “spooky” movie heading into the season for me; you cannot ask for better cozycore vibes to properly put you in the mood for all the fall things ahead. It’s so warm and rich and handmade; it’s kind of like the movie equivalent of your first apple cider of the year.

When Walker shared that watching a scary movie on Halloween night is a tradition in his house, Cox acknowledged the hitch: watch one or two a year and you start running out of good ones. So we’re going to have to hope Walker and Cox and more directors keep creating movies like this so that we can build a bigger rotation, brick by brick.

But right now, this one deserves a permanent spot in the foundation.

Shaun the Sheep: The Beast of Mossy Bottom is in theaters September 18.