{"id":4284,"date":"2024-10-05T03:19:17","date_gmt":"2024-10-05T03:19:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=4284"},"modified":"2024-10-12T22:03:35","modified_gmt":"2024-10-12T22:03:35","slug":"bad-taste","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/05\/bad-taste\/","title":{"rendered":"Bad Taste"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Bad Taste <\/strong>(1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Endeavour Productions\/Sci-Fi-Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Tony Hiles and Ken Hammon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michelle Scullion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 11, 1987 (NZ)\/June 16, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pete O\u2019Herne, Mike Minett, Terry Potter, Craig Smith, Peter Jackson, Doug Wrenn, Dean Lawrie, Ken Hammon.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $150,000 (NZ)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Before he entered the realm of mainstream moviemaking with The Frighteners and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, Peter Jackson was known only to a handful of film geeks for low-budget cult movies involving cannibalistic aliens, degenerate puppets and 50s-era zombies. His debut feature Bad Taste<\/strong>, a completely DIY venture shot over four years on weekends, immediately establishes Jackson\u2019s warped sensibility, goofball sense of humor and love for blood-soaked horror. It has all the earmarks of a first effort with the amateurish acting, cheap aesthetic, clumsy action scenes and fitful pacing. He makes up for it with a storyline that veers wildly between clever and kooky AND top-rate gore effects that bear the influences of Tom Savini.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Four agents from Astro Investigation and Defense Service (notice the initials?)- Barry (O\u2019Herne), Derek (Jackson w\/o beard), Frank (Minett) and Ozzy (Potter)- are dispatched to the small New Zealand village of Kaihoro to investigate the disappearance of the entire town population. They find the place overrun with aliens (in human form) dressed in blue shirts. They\u2019re there to harvest food-i.e. humans- for the leader Crumb\u2019s (Wren) intergalactic fast food franchise. My guess is if they manage to pull it off, they\u2019ll soon hit other villages, towns and major cities to restock. On top of this, the aliens abduct a charity collector (Smith) passing through Kaihoro and plan to have him for dinner (literally!). It\u2019s on our heroes to rescue the poor dope and put a stop to their grisly plan.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Perhaps I ought to modify my earlier statement about the special effects being \u201ctop-rate\u201d. They\u2019re top-rate for the movie\u2019s $25,000 budget. To me, they look 100 times better than the best CGI. No computers were used during the making of Bad Taste<\/strong>. The alien masks were baked by Jackson in his mother\u2019s oven. He uses makeup, latex, prosthetics and gallons of fake blood to simulate the graphic violence. There are a few cool OTT (Over The Top) scenes like when an agent punches through an man-alien\u2019s stomach with gun in hand to shoot another man-alien. A man-alien gets half his head blown off. Another has half his head cut off with a chainsaw. One of the agents sustains a head injury that frequently causes pieces of his brain to fall out. All of it is accompanied by a generous amount of S&S (spurt and splatter).<\/p>\n

\u00a0The cast of Bad Taste<\/strong> is mainly comprised of friends of Jackson who wears many hats on his maiden voyage. He\u2019s the director, co-writer, producer, editor, cinematographer, makeup artist, special effects creator and dual co-star. In addition to Agent Derek, he plays a captured alien named Robert (w\/beard). For all I know, he helped clean up the bloody mess at the end of each day\u2019s shoot too. As you\u2019d expect, the performances aren\u2019t exactly Oscar material, but they\u2019re just right for a low-budget horror-sci-fi flick with little more on its mind than showing the viewers a good time. Also, I must compliment the technical wizardry behind the scene where Jackson\u2019s two characters fight each other. It took months of careful editing to get it right and it looks great.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m sitting here carefully considering my next words about Bad Taste<\/strong>. I want to say it\u2019s as assured a first effort as Romero\u2019s Night of the Living Dead and Raimi\u2019s The Evil Dead but I\u2019m concerned it may sound like overkill. Comparing it favorably to two iconic independent horror flicks might be seen by some as pushing it. At the same time, it\u2019s how I feel about Bad Taste<\/strong>. It\u2019s hardly perfect but it\u2019s still a damn sight better than the pablum that passes for horror these days. It isn\u2019t afraid to turn stomachs with scenes like the one where an agent disguised as a man-alien drinks from a bowl of green vomit. It isn\u2019t afraid to offend sensibilities with its jokey attitude towards cannibalism and mass murder. It isn\u2019t afraid to live up to its title. On that basis alone, Jackson earns my respect as an artist. Yes, I suppose I am referring to Bad Taste<\/strong> as art which we all know is subjective.<\/p>\n

\u00a0For those who like simpler wrap-ups, Bad Taste<\/strong> is cool!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bad Taste (1987)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Endeavour Productions\/Sci-Fi-Horror-Comedy\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 91 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (graphic violence, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Peter Jackson, Tony Hiles and Ken Hammon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Michelle Scullion\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Peter Jackson\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 11, 1987 (NZ)\/June 16, 1989 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Pete O\u2019Herne, Mike Minett, Terry Potter, Craig Smith, Peter Jackson, Doug Wrenn, Dean Lawrie, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4488,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4284","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-scary-gory-wild-i-love-it"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Bad-Taste-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4284"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4489,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4284\/revisions\/4489"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4488"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4284"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4284"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4284"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}