Bad Taste

Dir: Peter Jackson

1987

*****

I remember when I was a kid, around ten years old, I would wander into our local video shop and gaze up at the top shelf of VHS tapes for rent. The top shelf towards the back of the shop was full of horror – films I was too young to rent and too scared to even attempt to rent from the son of the owner who would rent to us underage kids in exchange for sweets, comics and a little extra money. I remember the order the films sat vividly as they were there for years and I would obsess over them, wondering which one I would rent first when I turned 18. From left to right it was Alien, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, the 1988 remake of The Blob, The Stuff, Scanners, Transmutations and Bad Taste. The box art for The Stuff, Scanners and Aliens scared me the most and Killer Klowns From Outer Space confused me as I had no concept of horror comedy at this point. Bad Taste intrigued me. What the hell was it? The VHS cover just had a face that looked like it was made from mash potato sticking up his middle finger. I got the impression that the film wasn’t without humour but that it also had a nasty edge to it. When I finally watched it many years later I found that I wasn’t wrong. I don’t usually go for splatter films but I think Peter Jackson’s early works are on the best side of the sub-genre, although it is one of the few films where I honestly thought I was going to be physically sick. What I wasn’t expecting (we didn’t know who Peter Jackson was back then) was a low-budget Aussie comedy that was equally as humorous as it was disgusting. The special effects are old school at their finest. This is passionate film making on a shoe-string, a million miles away from Lord of the Rings but in the same realms of cult greatness. At some point in the 1980s, the Astro Investigation and Defence Service (AIDS) sends Derek, Frank, Ozzy, and Barry to investigate the disappearance of the entire population of the town of Kaihoro. They find the town has been overrun by space aliens disguised as humans in blue shirts. Barry kills one of the aliens and is attacked by others. After Derek notifies Frank and Ozzy, he begins torturing Robert, an alien they caught earlier. Robert's screaming attracts a number of aliens in the area. Derek kills the would-be rescuers, but he is attacked by Robert and falls off a cliff ledge, to his presumed death. Meanwhile, a charity collector named Giles is passing through Kaihoro. He is attacked by Robert, but escapes in his car. He stops at a nearby house for help. Another alien answers the door and captures Giles. He later wakes up in a tub of water filled with vegetables and is told he is about to be cooked and eaten. Derek also wakes up to find that he landed in a seagull's nest. He also finds that his brain is leaking out the back of his head, so he stuffs it back in and uses a hat to hold it in place. That night, Frank, Ozzy, and Barry infiltrate the aliens' house and find a room filled with bloody cardboard boxes. They kill a nearby alien and Frank wears its shirt to infiltrate an alien meeting. He finds out that the residents of Kaihoro have been harvested for alien fast food. Robert vomits into a bowl, which the aliens dine on, including the disguised (and disgusted) Frank. He escapes and tells the others of the plan. They sneak out to save Giles as the aliens sleep. At sunrise, they try to leave but are attacked by the aliens, which quickly dissolves into a gunfight. Derek emerges and his hat is shot off due to the ensuing gunfire, and he starts losing more of his brain, so he uses his belt as a headband. He grabs a chainsaw from the boot of his car and heads for the alien house. As the boys leave with Giles, the alien leader (Lord Crumb) and his followers transform into their true form and follow. Ozzy uses a rocket launcher to blow up Frank's car, which has been overrun by aliens. Frank and Ozzy hunt for Lord Crumb and kill many aliens along the way. Meanwhile, Derek kills an alien with his chainsaw and replaces the missing parts of his brain with its brain. An alien prepares to shoot Frank and Ozzy, but it is beheaded by Derek after he bursts through the wall behind it. Frank and Ozzy are shocked to see him alive. After they escape the house, Lord Crumb shoots Ozzy in the leg and Frank fires his rocket launcher at the leader, but it misses and almost hits Derek, finally taking out a sheep in a nearby meadow. Derek is knocked out by Lord Crumb and the house transforms into a giant space ship, which blasts off into space with Derek still aboard. On board, Derek looks out the window to see that he is leaving Earth. Crumb is then killed by Derek, who ambushes him and cuts through the alien with his chainsaw. Derek proclaims into his phone: "I'm coming to get you bastards!" He then puts on the alien leader's skin, laughing maniacally as he rockets towards the alien planet. On Earth, the rest of the group drive away into the sunset in Derek's car. When most people see Peter Jackson they think of Lord of the Rings, the not brilliant King Kong remake or the horrible adaptation of The Lovely Bones – as well as loads of other films he’s been connected with only to drop out at the last minute (usually leaving Guillermo del Toro the chance to take over). Not me though, when I think of Peter Jackson I think ‘Derek’. The image of Robert the alien giving us the finger is now the stuff of 80s horror legend. It is about as iconic as low-budget horror gets and it is utterly glorious. I don’t like feeling like I’m about to throw up but I congratulate any film maker who makes me feel that way intentionally. I’m not sure which was more vomit-inducing; watching Derek trying to push his own brain back in or watching Frank eating alien vomit. Heavily influenced by special effects pioneer and legend Tom Savini, Jackson incorporated many absurdly gory special effects that matched the humour of the script and performances perfectly. Much of the film was shot in and around Jackson's hometown of Pukerua Bay, north of Wellington, using a 25-year-old 16mm Bolex camera. Originally begun as a 20 minute short film called 'Roast of the Day', the film was shot primarily on weekends over the course of four years, at an initial cost of around $25,000. Toward the end of the shoot the New Zealand Film Commission invested around $235,000 into the film to ensure its completion. All the alien masks in the film were baked in Peter Jackson's mother's oven. Like all great low-budget horror films of the 70s/80 Bad Taste was banned, however, many disagreed with the decision and it eventually lead to the firing and dissolution of the Queensland Film Board of Review in 1990. There have been several cuts over the years but the original is always best. During his acceptance speech at the 2004 Academy Awards for winning Best film for Lord of the Rings, Jackson mentioned Bad Taste (along with Meet the Feebles), joking that it had been "wisely overlooked by the Academy.” Give me Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles over Lord of the Rings any day of the week.