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Underground > Film, TV & Theatre >

Bad Taste (and other Peter Jackson juvenilia)

Brigade du jour

19:51 / 23.12.03

You know, with all this LOTR malarkey dominating the popular imagination, surely it's time for a reappraisal in which we all share amused and amusing reminiscences about PJ's earlier works, particularly Bad Taste, a film at once wonderfully awful and awfully wonderful, wherein a race of alien cannibals invades New Zealand and only Derek and The Boys can stop them ...

A bog-standard horror film, but elevated by good old-fashioned physical effects that boggle the mind with their vividness and remind the viewer that a low budget means you have to be that much more creative to realise the crazy apeshit stories you've scribbled on a damp beermat?

Or a satire so deft that you don't even realise it is a satire half of the time, even when all the actors seem to be mechanics and bus drivers, and even when the chief alien drinks a tureen of human vomit and delightedly licks his lips, declaring "Ooh, I got a crunchy bit!"

Or both, if you like. Nobody's forcing ultimatums on anyone.

Oh, and first things last, I just had a possibly hallucinated suspicion that somebody's already put a thread like this on Barbelith. If so, I apologise in advance and refer all posters thereto. Eye thank yew.

22:44 / 23.12.03

One thing I love is that Peter Jackson has said in interviews that he has one more splatter/gore film left in him and that this time he'll probably get a budget to do it right. I think the idea of a studio giving Jackson heaps of money and getting "Meat the Feebles" in return is ace!

Bad Taste is weird for me because it is such a cult film. I don't know if it made it to England or the US in the early days, but it was all over Australia and most people I knew had seen it. People would quote it, kids named Derek had reason to be proud. It's still pretty strange to watch LotR and think that Jackson directed both films.

Interestingly enough there's apparently a version out there with American voices overdubbed. I can't even imagine what this would sound like.

foot long subbacultcha

08:12 / 24.12.03

I have very fond memories of seeing Bad Taste for the first time. Around six years ago it was a bit of a legend in the halls I was staying at in uni, where only one bloke had seen it. He hyped this thing up so much that we were all obsessed with tracking it down. I completely forgot about it until a year later when my flat mate found a copy on VHS in the bargain bin at HMV Picadilly for 2.99.

Bloody hell I was blown away. It was clear that this was a DIY no budget effort but the genius of the thing was so exciting that I had to track down all his other movies. Then shortly afterwards I found out the dude was making LOTR.

Brigade du jour

09:40 / 24.12.03

"Interestingly enough there's apparently a version out there with American voices overdubbed. I can't even imagine what this would sound like."

Jesus, thank god I dodged that bullet. And I picked my VHS copy up about ten years ago from my then local shitty little video store. They had The Abyss special edition for £6 second hand as well, mind you. Hmm, not that shitty after all!

I can't agree about the improved visual effects angle though mate. I think the cheapness of the film is what gives it its ... charm? Well, the horror film equivalent of charm anyway. Texas Chainsaw Massacre was brilliant because it was shot in a fortnight with schoolkids in the countryside, so Tobe Hooper and co had to solve script challenges without resorting to computers and all the other shit we take for granted today.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not a complete Luddite. LOTR absolutely needed CGI to realise the vision, as do hundreds of other films. It's just that with a film as cheesy as Bad Taste you can't justify spending pots of money on it, IMHO.

Then again, if it retained the satirical edge and was so stupid that nobody except dickheads could possibly take it seriously ... ah, who knows? A grand satire on Hollywood with depth and poise. And people with the tops of their heads cut off.

Oh that's it! Brainy idea! They should re-release it! With all the fanfare usually afforded to the likes of The Exorcist and Rear Window, a huge Warner Bros publicity campaign predicated upon "From The Director Of The Lord of The Rings", lavish premiere in Wellington, clips of George Clooney and Steven Spielberg and Ian McKellen saying things like "ingenious" and "truly special talent" purloined from press junkets for other films.

This could be the cinema's greatest ever confidence trick! And you could get away with it too, by refuting point blank any and all suggestion that this is not some sort of joke, this is Peter Jackson's art and we should be bloody grateful he's seen fit to share it with us.

Anybody got his email address?