Sheeps Clothing
Sheeps Clothing
The use of charismatic leaders’ obeying followers for unsolicited and immoral works has been noted since ages. Sheeps Clothing, however, is a fresh take on the old. It was written and directed by Kyle McConaghy and edited by Jana Emig. It tells a story of a man with a head injury and his church pastor leads him to the dark side.
Mansa (Aaron Phifer) on the other hand was known to be a no nonsense, well respected public schooling top administer (who also cared for) the people and, and the school district. But after he confronted a furious coach (Matthew Bushell) for sexually assaulting several students — informing him that legal action was in progress — the coach violently retaliated against Mansa with a baseball bat.
Asylum feels nice after all the hustle – Mansa managed to get rid of that TBI somewhere else, and ended up joining the community of Core Fellowship church. He has a video production job there and also made friends with the pastor. That pastor (Nick Heyman), actually looks friendly on the face value, he is a church man.
Doing so doesn’t mean that he does not have a boiling temper lurking below the grins, or that everyone adores him without exception, including his parish, such as Terry Sean Hayman. Who over the years lavished a lot on the church, only to later demand a refund in cash. When Mansa intervened in the fight between Terry and Pastor, who had raised Mansa’s ire, Terry grabbed at Mansa, and Pastor struck Terry’s head with a hammer and that ended up killing him.
Then with Terry’s lifeless body beside him, Pastor orders Mansa to assist him in moving Terry’s body from the place. Mansa understands the ill-mannered behavior and feels more disgusted than ever. Yet, he does it anyway. After all, did not Pastor kill Terry when he wanted Mao being hurt? Hasn’t Pastor treated him like a jewel for a long time? What was wrong with Manse? It is only when they are en route out of town intending to get rid of Terry where it becomes clearer for Terry that there was indeed twisting of things between the two parties.
Sleep? Never—a title so cruelly removed from the true character of the film it brings chills down my spine. The style bears similarity to religious blooper films, and for good reason. The religious part is nowhere to be found. No one and no thing is possessed, no desire brings screaming with the urge to bear the antichrist, and no one seeks to be a superior to everyone else.
The very same types of horrors present in ‘Sheeps Clothing’ are those related to power – [when it is] misused, violence unleashed on the innocent or controlling [one] done through sheer punishment – these are all too real.
The film is also one such film that does double duty as a character study that has storms on every nerve oh so often. For Mansa, protecting someone weak goes directly to being the weak one. Sandwiched in the two is a picture of Mansa that shows him searching for himself after sustaining TBI, more than once. After the killing, he begins to grapple with a situation whereby what is beneficial to Pastor may not be in every situation okay with Mansa.
Pastor is a bad picture, yet equally interesting as the antagonistic character because, it happens to be the individual against whom Mansa grows to develop his own character. He is selfish, short tempered, and crafty; he would use ‘friendship’ with Manse as a tool to paint himself as virtuous in every way possible, which is quite common when Pastor makes Mansa testifies during one of the church sessions in the early stages (TBI had affected Mansa’s speech flashbacks). He addresses Manse the way an adult would talk to a child, and is not at all condescending of Manse’s participation in this or that conspiracy.
While he would make a good villain in some storyline. He’s a bad person but else is not entertaining considering him as a serial killer criminal mastermind. He has a normal human bore evil which isn’t any creative. It simply makes it more scary than usual.
The actors of Sheeps Clothing are nothing short of spectacular. Aaron Phifer — who also co-wrote and produced the film — is mesmerizing as Mansa. One can only wince at how realistic all his speech, his TBI-induced walk and his moments of panic are. Nick Heyman’s contribution as Pastor was impressive; a great tamalist hiding behind a pious facade, co-writer.
In addition, the rest of the cast (Matthew Bushell in the role of the coach, Sean Hayman as Terry, Erin LeShawn Wiley – Terry’s wife Lori, Shelby Sulak and Keyon McConaghy – congregants Holly and Owen, Scotty Tovar and Julio Perez – Pastor’s neighbors Reggie and Manuel, Sterling Macer Jr – unlucky witness Jay) adds to the narrative the additional reasonable extent of depth that is needed.
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- Genre: Thriller
- Country: United States
- Director: Kyle McConaghy
- Cast: Aaron Phifer, Nick Heyman, Sterling Macer Jr.
