Bad Taste (1987)
Review by Doc Ezra
Film:
DVD:

Written by Peter Jackson
Directed by Peter Jackson
Starring Craig Smith, Pete O'Herne, Terry Potter, Mike Minett

Features:

• Theatrical trailers
  
• Text bio of Peter Jackson
  

Anamorphic: Yep.

My Advice: Rent it.

Before people started hurling little golden statuettes at him, Peter Jackson had a filmography full of some really sketchy movies. The kind of stuff Lloyd Kaufman would watch and grimace. Dead Alive, Meet the Feebles, and his first effort, Bad Taste are all funny and revolting at the same time, full of gross-out humor and cheap special effects gore. Shot on weekends with the help of some friends and home-made effects, Bad Taste is a great example of what dedicated, twisted people with no money can produce when somebody hands them a camera.

The plot of the movie, such as it has one, is as follows: aliens have landed in a small New Zealand town to harvest the people living there for use as a cheap fast-food meat source. The government sends in a four-man team of UFO-chasers to see what's going on and put a stop to the nefarious aliens' agenda. Much violence and gore ensues. The plot really only exists as a means to propel the film from what disgusting sight-gag to another, but it serves that function admirably enough. The exposition actually takes too long to come about, as I spent the first half-hour of the movie wondering why our intrepid heroes were shooting up normal-looking guys in blue button-ups, all the while talking about eliminating the alien menace. Only much later did I discover that these were aliens disguised as humans.

The film's performances are about what one would expect if you cast your first film from the pool of guys that hang around with you (unless you hang around with real actors, in which case substitute random people selected at the bowling alley). "Acting" might be a bit too high-falutin' a word to throw around, if you get my drift. The camera work shows early evidence of Jackson's eye and hyperkinetic swooping and zooming. The shaky handheld shots are very reminiscent of Evil Dead, and the panoramic scenery shots look like a Fellowship of the Ring warm-up. The effects are surprisingly good (and plenty disgusting), considering they were essentially all home-brewed.

The action is pretty well paced after the slow introduction, and runs non-stop through the end of the film. Likewise the splattering of various body parts and blood, which begins in the opening credits and never really lets up throughout the flick. This is not a film for the faint of heart or easily nauseated, as there are some truly disgusting visuals thrown about. Lots of grey matter and internal organs. But it's all in good fun. Bad Taste is unabashedly silly, and it is this very unapologetic attitude that makes the movie watchable. If the film had taken itself seriously for even a second, the whole effect would have been ruined, and it would have been so much cheezy independent B-movie horror drek.

The DVD treatment is pretty minimal, with nothing but a text bio of Jackson and theatrical trailers to speak of in the extras department. Some commentary by Jackson would have been entertaining, or even the standard "making-of" featurette would have bee nice. Unless you're a die-hard Peter Jackson completist, or happen to own the complete Troma video catalog, then you're probably served best by renting this one. But if you want to be able to show your grandchildren how Peter Jackson got started someday, when he's joined the vaunted canon of Spielberg and Lucas, then pick this one up and tuck it in your video cabinet. And the next time somebody asks you why all us LotR fanboys were so apprehensive about the movie, show 'em this one. The dawning shock and horror on their faces will make the purchase worth every penny.