Bad Taste.

Review #1486: Bad Taste.

Cast:
Terry Potter (Ozzy / 3rd Class Alien), Pete O'Herne (Barry / 3rd Class Alien), Peter Jackson (Derek / Robert), Mike Minett (Frank / 3rd Class Alien), Craig Smith (Giles / 3rd Class Alien), Ken Hammon (3rd Class Alien), Costa Botes (3rd Class Alien), and Doug Wren (Lord Crumb) Produced and Directed by Peter Jackson.

Review:
"I call them splat-stick. To me, they were a joke. We enjoyed being crazy and anarchic and upsetting the people we wanted to upset in those days."

Sometimes you really have to start at the beginning for a director to really see what their body of work can evolve to, where one really needs to see how they do with their first efforts, whether made for a small or high budget, or if they had to take further hands of production to get it finished. In the case of Peter Jackson, not only did he produce and direct the film, he also served as cinematographer, co-star, co-writer, co-editor and special effects. The film that inspired him the most in imagination was King Kong (1933), which he saw at the age of nine while growing up in New Zealand. As a child, he made his own little films, helped by a gift of a Super 8 camera from a family friend, going all of the work from director to effects. In 1978, he was spurred on to direct a short film for a children's show called Spot On, which had an amateur filmmaking competition, which would feature several people who grew up around Jackson, which would be done over three weeks as a 20-minute feature inspired by his love of Ray Harryhausen (surprisingly, they lost the competition) that featured Hammon and O'Herne alongside Jackson. In 1983, he started on the road of making what would become his first feature, which first started as a short film called "Roast of the Day", shot on an old 16mm Bolex camera that would involve a famine relief collector finding a lifeless town and being attacked by a bayonetting maniac and cannibals, which gradually evolved into a splatter film (including special forces and other various acts of absurdity, like an exploding animal). After spending time on filming, the short film had turned out into a near feature, and he was inspired by a screening of The Evil Dead to make a full 16mm feature, which would ultimately be shot over four years on weekends. The initial budget was $25,000 before the New Zealand Film Commission helped in further funding (with Executive Director Jim Booth personally backing the film along with Jackson's next three films). This is certainly a funny film to introduce New Zealand for those curious in world cinema, that is for sure.

It can be a fun time to look upon where a director as eventually famous as Jackson started from, where he had the help of his friends and family in making a film that comes off as shocking and amusing as this one proves to be. The actors prove just fine in rolling with the gruesome ridiculousness, including Jackson and his double act as a loopy lead and an alien (made best by the sequence where Jackson's character tortures...Jackson's character through some editing tricks), while the others do their best to remind me of stuff you might do with friends (as if I have friends who would actually care about that sort of thing). It was an arduous experience for the crew, but it surely would still be one to envy in enjoyment because you can see the effort at hand from Jackson, who actually had to harden the latex in the alien masks by cooking them in his family's kitchen. It appeals to the most basic of my sensibilities, in that I sure do enjoy a good splatter show that makes me interested in how it can drive one up the wall in shock and color, matching up with a gruesomely dark premise of aliens harvesting humans for fast food. It isn't exactly a triumph for world cinema, but I readily enjoy what I see on screen because of how it doesn't take itself so seriously, being a clever amateur experience (complete with dubbed-in sound) that shocks and rocks the house down. With a run-time of barely over 90 minutes, how could one go wrong with such a gooey fun time like this? Provocative and crude, it is most certainly an interesting building block for a director to find their footing towards further adventures in New Zealand and beyond.

Overall, I give it 8 out of 10 stars.