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.

Meet the Feebles

Dir: Peter Jackson

1989

*****

Long before Peter Jackson was directing epics, winning Oscars and was a knight companion of the New Zealand order of Merit, he wrote, directed and stared in a vomit-inducing sci-fi splatter horror comedy involving aliens and a bloke called Derek who defeats the said aliens single-highhandedly with half of his brain missing. After that, in 1989 to be precise, he made an anti-muppet black comedy musical in which the puppets are involved in adultery, drugs, pornography, and murder and use bad language. It is a masterpiece. Back in the day, Meet The Feebles had a legendary status at school. Spoken of in hushed tones, someone would have claimed to have seen it and some even suggested that 'their brother's mate's dad could probably lend it to them' and there was always false promise that they'd lend it on. I and my mates were desperate to see it, even though we had no hard evidence that it even really existed. This was life -pre-internet. It did exist though and it took quite a long time to track down and buy a copy but it was well worth the wait. It's extremely juvenile, questionable in taste, rips the hell out of all things Jim Henson and is rather graphic but it's also hilarious. It's the dark, underground cult film that I had always hoped it would be. It keeps the format of the Muppet Show in that the puppets perform and are then seen socializing back stage, in the Muppet Show they generally interact with the guest star and mess about a bit, in The Feebles they argue, have sex, do drugs and kill each other. I'm a huge Muppet fan but to see the exact opposite of my childhood favourite, in all its spectacular depravity was quite a moment for me in my adolescence. The songs are outrageous and 'roll about on the floor' funny. It was one of those hard to get cult films that surpassed its reputation. There is so much to enjoy, indeed, there was nothing about it I didn't enjoy, and it contains what is probably the finest Vietnam flashback ever committed to film. It makes me wonder why Jackson and co spent millions on The Lord of the Rings films when they could have used less than half the money to make a Feebles Trilogy? The Feebles was initially intended to be a TV show, with Japanese investors keen to invest but alas, all we have is this treasured film. Some of the best films have come from funny people, with wild ideas and no money to make it, Meet the Feebles is probably the best example of that that I can think of. The stuff of cult legend.

The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
Dir: Peter Jackson
2014
****
Peter Jackson's initial Hobbit outing; An Unexpected Journey, plodded along at a snails pace. The follow up, 2013's The Desolation of Smaug, was overlong and had questionable action sequences and special effects. It's fair to say Jackson corrected all these mistakes in the final installment, The Battle of the Five Armies. The film starts where the last one left off, making for an action-packed introduction but also raising the question why such an important part of the story was cut in half in the first place. Again, stretching the one book across three films really diluted the magic of J. R. R. Tolkien's original story. Rewriting a novel for a film is one thing but to add characters and chance the plot of a much loved classic just so you can stretch it out for profit is fairly bad behavior in my book, it's okay if justified but in this case I think two films, as was originally planned, would have been sufficient. However, The Battle of the Five Armies is a joy, nothing is rushed and the pace is consistently exciting. The special effects are vastly improved and the silly action sequences have been removed (although there is a short scene whereby one character rides a horse cart, sans horse, down a hill that looked like it was straight out of The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret of the Unicorn, a film Jackson (over) produced in 2011). The battle scene at Dol Guldur that sees Elrond (Hugo Weaving), Galadriel (Cate Blanchett), Radagast (Sylvestor McCoy), Gandalf (Ian McKellen and Saruman the White (Christopher Lee) fight the Nazgul and Sauron is a stunning bit of cinema, with amazing special effects and beautiful cinematography. It's a great scene for fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy and a wonderful final performance from the late, great Christopher Lee. The concluding battle is an epic affair, there have been many epic CGI battles since Ridley Scott's 2000 film The Gladiator re-invented the genre but this has to be one of the better ones. Introducing Dain played by Billy Connolly was an act of genius alone. The last scene sees the trilogy come full circle and sets up the events of The Lord of the Rings perfectly and without the schmaltz I thought the Return of the King had. I believe Jackson learned valuable lessons from the previous films, I just wish he had got it right from the very beginning.

The Lovely Bones
Dir: Peter Jackson
2009
*
The Lovely Bones is an amazing book. The Lovely Bones film however, is a diabolical adaptation that is nothing but a money spinner due to it's big name director. The rights were practically stolen from Lynne Ramsay who would undoubtedly have made a brilliant film. I just don't understand why you would change so much if you were really that into the book, this is another example of the Hollywood machine undermining the audience with nothing but dollar signs in their eyes. I expected more from Jackson though I have to say, his visions of purgatory were so cliched and unimaginative, annoying as he still seemed to have time to add products (Lord of the Rings book in book shop window) as little nods to his previous work. Apart from the young actors who all gave good performances, the older actors should be ashamed of their acting. It seems all you need is a dodgy wig, fake mustache and a set of comedy joke shop teeth to get an Oscar nomination these days. Hopefully this wonderful book will be adapted more faithfully in a few years time. Do yourselves a favour, read the book and forget this film ever existed! One star for the young actors but that is all!

The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
Dir: Peter Jackson
2013
***
The story continues. The sequel has a bit of a faster pace than the original, which was welcome. The original story is still stretched a little thinly though and the addition of extra characters and events is sacrilege (or so my more nerdy friends tell me). I liked the Stephen Fry and Sylvester McCoy cameos very much and I thought the Smaug special effects were rather good. I liked the film but it's beginning to get a little samey. You've either seen it in the last film or in TLOTR.  The Smaug scene at the end of the film is the big pay off and obviously what was concentrated on most because all the other action films are over the top, ridiculous, cartoon-like headaches. The barrels down the river scene made me feel a little bit sick, the effects were laughable in places and I thought the whole thing was utterly unnecessary. Seriously, compare the special effects to Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (the Dragon bit) and it doesn't hold up at all. All part of the filler I guess. I liked it but cut out 30 minutes or so and I would have loved it.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey
Dir: Peter Jackson
2012
***
Turning one book into three films, fiddling with the story and adding new characters is all part of this shameless money-making machine after the success of the original films and will no doubt please the producers of the franchise greatly. To be honest, when it is all done to this high standard, why not? You should always read the book first kids, that is if you're interested, personally I was never a Goblins and Wizards kid, I was more into Dinosaurs and Astronauts so I have never and probably will never read the book. Not because I'm sure it's not good or anything, I just have about 1000 books I want to read first. I liked the film a lot, it's nice to see some new faces along side a few favourites from the LOTR films. I found it a lot easier to watch than I found the first film although it is a bit wishy washy at times. The camera lingers...are they safe...did they make it....yes, they made it, there are 2 more films to go and a ton of money to make, get on with it. I'm not sure the hard-core fans will like it but then they seemed to like Peter Jackson's self-indulgent LOTR trilogy, so I'm going to guess yes. As a non-fan, I thought it was still pretty good. My favorite thing about it has to be Sylvestor McCoy, he was brilliant.

Heavenly Creatures
Dir: Peter Jackson
1994
****
Peter Jackson made a hell of a leap from Gory alien movie, to 'Muppet's gone bad' comedy to one of the best Zombie films of all time to serious drama. Heavenly Creatures isn't without it's horror or humour but it did show a different side to the already very capable director. Heavenly Creatures works for various different reasons, in that sense Jackson couldn't go wrong. Orchestrating it however took talent. The look of 1950s New Zealand was perfect, that only added to the authenticity of the real life events with locations and journal voice-overs directly from real diary entries. The script, again full of real life diary entries was alluring and intense, curious and funny, without it the film would never have been able to flow as it did. The films greatest asset though was the performances and relationship between the two lead girls played by Melanie Lynskey and Kate Winslet. Jackson's film may not have been a financial hit but to rate a film in that way would be a mistake as this is quite an overlooked piece of masterwork.

King Kong 
Dir: Peter Jackson
2005
**
It was far too long. Not a problem if a film is entertaining enough but Jackson let success go to his head I feel. It is pretty audacious remaking a classic like King Kong and although I wasn't against the idea, I feel his ego was the real monster here. The SFX are very impressive but in comparason to what was available back in the 30s, the original still impresses me more. Unlike the original it had little heart or charm. Also, unfinished and pointless subplots frustrate me and I think the various examples in this film actually shows up the makers as not being as clever as they seem.