Bad Taste
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Costa Botes, Graham Butcher, Michael Gooch, Peter Gooch, Robin GriggsDVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1
Format: Anamorphic, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DTS Surround Sound, DVD, NTSC, THX, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.66:1
Running Time: 91 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-20
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Starz / Anchor Bay
Movie Reviews of Bad Taste
Movie Review: Peter Jackson's hilarious (and disgusting) 1987 debut.
Summary: 5 Stars
Bad Taste is one of those movies that people will either love or hate. It has an extremely low budget, the acting is all over the map, the editing and direction is questionable at times and the movie's twisted sense of humor might come across as just plain vile to a lot of folks. But this is one of those rare instances where the movie's faults work for it instead of against.
Bad Taste was writer/director/actor Peter Jackson's 1987 debut and immediately established him as a force to be reckoned with in the horror film community. The movie actually began production in 1983. Peter and his friends (who worked as most of the cast and crew) filmed it on weekends with funding from the New Zealand Film Commission, who thought they were making a documentary on insects.
Given the erratic stop-and-go nature of the film's production, the end result is actually very solid and any continuity errors that could have easily resulted were kept pretty much to a minimum. Peter Jackson's budding talent as a director is also very evident from the start as the movie features some special-effects and camera shots that look better than the budget should have allowed.
The plot involves a secret government task force (whose initials spell A.I.D.S.) that is sent to investigate the disappearance of a whole town's inhabitants and the rumors of possible alien invasion. Derek (Peter Jackson) is the leader who clearly has quite a few screws loose. Ozzy (Terry Potter), Barry (Peter O'Herne) and Frank (Mike Minett) round out the group. There is also some sort of a tax-collector named Giles (Craig Smith) who gets captured by the aliens and the agents end up rescuing him. Turns out that humans are the new fast-food craze on the alien's home planet and they are the ones who have wiped out the town. The agents use whatever force deemed necessary to wipe out the aliens and send them back where they came from.
And that's basically it. The paper thin plot is mainly an excuse for the cast and crew to go absolutely berserk with the special effects, gore, off-the-wall characters and some truly tasteless humor.
The movie's biggest selling point is the extreme amount of gore. Some of the best scenes involve Derek falling off a cliff and cracking open his skull. A piece of his brain falls out and he constantly is sticking it back in his head and ends up having to tie a belt around his head to keep the flap of skull from flying open. There's also an alien who gets cut in two by a chainsaw, a sheep that gets blown up by a rocket launcher (one of the most memorable scenes I should add), an alien who gets hit by a car and splits in half (the aftermath in which has the top half of his body being still very much alive and it proceeds to toss pine-cones at the agents is one of my personal favorite scenes and is very funny). One of the most infamous scenes that is guaranteed to make people's stomachs turn is when an alien vomits up a disgusting blue substance into a bowl and all of the other aliens proceed to drink the vomit (don't even start to ask why!) There are quite a few other graphic moments involving heads getting partially shot off by handguns, heads being impaled by sledgehammers, and limbs being torn off in explicit fashion. Only people with twisted sensibilities and strong stomachs need apply.
Peter Jackson actually did most of the special effects himself and they are actually quite solid throughout. Of special mention should be when the aliens' house that is there secret headquarters takes off near the end. The model work was pretty convincing and was a ton better than what you would expect.
The acting is actually one of the funniest elements of the film. Peter Jackson is hysterically loony as the borderline insane Derek. Peter O'Herne's deadpan delivery of most of his lines are classic. Terry Potter looks like a mixture between a body builder and Richard Simmons while Mike Minett plays the stereotypical action guy. Everyone also doubled as playing some of the aliens and through some creative editing it appears that there's a lot more people in the movie than there actually is.
Since the film was filmed over such a long period of time the editing can get quite choppy at times, but due to the crazy and low-budget of the movie it actually helps the movie in a weird way. As I mentioned before, there are quite a few crazy camera shots and angles that give an early glimpse into the wild and original style that Peter would build upon and refine in his later pictures.
If I have one tiny gripe is that the movie could have trimmed a bit from its 90 minute running time. A couple of scenes drag just a bit and maybe with a few cuts the pacing could have been tightened up a bit in places.
Anyone who loves good cheesy-horror films that contains truckloads of gore and some very tongue-in-cheek humor would be wise to check out Bad Taste. It's easily one of the most audacious debuts in horror film history and a surprisingly efficient and confident debut from Peter Jackson.
The recent DVD release by Anchor Bay is fantastic. The film has been cleaned up considerably and is presented in anamorphic 1.66:1 widescreen and has been THX certified. It is available in both a single disc set that contains just the movie (extensive talent bios and a trailer are included) and a deluxe special edition that contains a really insightful documentary into the making of the movie. I recommend paying the 10 extra dollars and going with the deluxe version.
Bad Taste is not rated and contains extreme graphic violence & gore, language.
Summary of Bad Taste
Could a title be any more direct? New Zealand maverick Peter Jackson made a splash (well, more of a splatter) with this film debut, a slapstick gross-out comedy about an alien fast-food franchise that turns a small town into a cheap source of meat. All that stands in the extraterrestrials' way is the Alien Investigation Defense Service (yes, it's a tasteless gag), a bunch of would-be Rambos who take on the aliens with axes, rocket launchers, and chainsaws. Jackson mines vomit jokes, dismembered corpses, and brain-spattering gore for over-the-top laughs and succeeds with inventive low-budget effects, crack timing, and sheer exuberance. Not bad for a film made on weekends with homemade props and a bunch of energetic mates. Jackson topped himself a few years later with the even more outrageous and hilarious bloody gut-buster Dead Alive.The limited-edition two-disc set also includes the documentary featurette "Good Taste Made Bad Taste," a revealing "making of" shot at the time of production and featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson's home-made special effects, and a 16-page booklet with cast interviews. --Sean Axmaker
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