Bad Taste

“There’s no glowing fingers on these bastards.”

Eventually, I may move on to films which I’m more ambivalent about, or that I feel are failed examples of what we might very loosely call the ‘b-movie’ aesthetic; or simply too far beyond the bounds of conventional film-making practise to categorise in any reasonable way. But for the first few columns at least I want to keep things sweet, with some of my favourites. Films that, for me, rank above many more recognised classics simply on account of the amount of sheer joy they have given me over the years.

Before he bagged his first Oscar for Heavenly Creatures and became enormously famous for his Lord of the Rings films, Kiwi auteur Peter Jackson was known for bizarre, gore-laden black comedies that caused audiences to laugh and gag in equal measure. Of these early efforts, the most widely venerated is probably 1992’s blood-soaked Braindead (Dead Alive in North America); some, a dissenting minority, might advance 1989’s Meet the Feebles, an obscene, drug and porn soaked inversion of The Muppet Show. But for me, there is only one…

Bad Taste (trailer)

 

Country: New Zealand
Year: 1987
Director: Peter Jackson
IMDB plot keywords:Alien, Fast Food, New Zealand, Chainsaw, Kicked In The Crotch, Cult Favorite, Gore, Rocket Launcher, Eating Brains, Vomit, Sheep, Unsynchronized Sound, Obscene Finger Gesture, Split In Two, Cannibalism, Exploding House
Fun fact: That guy eating the brains out of someone’s skull with a spoon now has 9 Oscars and a knighthood.

 

“There’s no glowing fingers on these bastards.” – Derek

If, by some bizarre series of comic mishaps, I was to find myself teaching a class on film production, I would base a large part of my syllabus around Peter Jackson’s first, and in some respects his best, film. Created over four years at a cost of $20,000NZ (round about $15,000 US), Peter Jackson writes, directs, produces, edits, stars (twice!) and does make-up and special effects. The whole film was shot on clockwork 16mm cameras, with all sound done in post-production; Jackson baked latex masks in his mum’s oven and listed her as “Special Assistant to the Producer” in the credits. The film is a masterclass in just what guile, determination and hard work can achieve. Though obviously schlocky, I’ve seen films made for far more, with bigger crews and proper equipment (Jackson built his own steadicam out of scaffold poles,) with budgets ten or twenty times the size, that look much worse. Looks aren’t everything though; besides immensely satisfying “splatstick” action sequences featuring chainsaws, sledgehammers, exploding sheep and meat cleavers to the face (and infamous gross-out sequences, largely down to the films antagonists, whose diet seems to consist entirely of human flesh and bright green vomit), there’s a lot of great lines, and even a couple of great performances (Jackson as the brain-damaged, chainsaw-toting nerd Derek and the otherwise unknown Doug Wren as alien fast-food impresario Lord Crumb). It’s hard to watch Bad Taste with a group of friends and not, for weeks afterwards, intersperse conversations with observations about weekend cowboys, intergalactic wankers, the qualities of Dereks and exactly when you are going to be leaving this shitty planet.

The film follows the exploits of four members of New Zealand’s answer to the Men in Black, the Astro-Investigation and Defence Service (AIDS). In fact, the film rather strongly implies that Ozzy, Barry, Frank and Derek are the entire organisation; their communications gear is held together with masking tape, and their dialogue seems to imply their career defending  Earth (and the moon!) from the threat of alien invasion has not been particularly illustrious so far. Derek, the ‘Gung-ho scientist’ has a noticeable dribbling problem and a worrying predilection for violence even prior to half his brain falling out; his tiny lunch bag holds an array of weapons (including a bayonet, uzi and a clawhammer) far exceeding its apparent external dimensions. However, their mysterious boss (featured in a deliciously off-kilter opening sequence), views them as superior to the armed forces, and keeps them on speed dial (Listed as ‘The Boys’, next to ‘The Queen’ and ‘Mum’).

The films origins as a few friends mucking about are fairly apparent towards the beginning; several early scenes seem to simply be comic riffs on George Romero via the Three Stooges, but the film comes together rapidly as the plot reveals itself. Lord Crumb, a sneering, camp alien entrepreneur, and his team of grunting, moronic henchmen have assumed human form, killed off the population of a small town and crated them up (“Amazing how many you can pack in, once you slice the fat off”) for export. Apparently, aliens find human meat “a taste sensation”, and if Crumb is allowed to get back to his home planet, he’ll lead back an invasion fleet that will wipe out humanity and turn us all into Sapien Burgers and Homo Nuggets. In the short term, Giles, a gormless charity collector, has wandered into the exclusion zone and is marinating in 11 secret herbs and spices for the alien’s victory lunch. After Derek is pitched off a cliff at the end of the first act (by Robert, another character played by Peter Jackson four months later, in a great piece of editing), it falls to the rest of the team to suit up, crack out the guns and start ripping aliens heads off and drinking vomit in a desperate bid to save the earth (and the moon!).

Derek of course isn’t dead; he miraculously lands on a seagull nest, crushing the birds and only losing part of his brain, which 4he stuffs back into his skull amid violent epileptic fits in one of the films finest scenes. This trauma causes the already slightly deranged Derek to “go ape-shit” and crack out his chainsaw for the action-packed finale, as the aliens revert to their true form and battle it out with AIDS amid exploding cars, sheep and buildings, before Crumb apparently escapes in a flying house that defies the budget as much as Earth’s gravity…let’s just say, that you should always check for stowaways. The gore effects get better every time they are employed; and the end credits theme will stick in your head for days.

Generally I want to avoid simply regurgitating the plot and the best sequences in these reviews, but Bad Taste particularly is one of those films that just invites it, replete with a hundred little details and one-liners that elevate it from mere silliness into the sublime. As with most of the best films of this sort (the irreverent horror comedy), the overall tone is the real key to the whole enterprise, and Bad Taste has it down pat. Part of that is treating the events with a certain amount of matter-of-factness that allows the audience to be carried along to almost anywhere; another is taking the special effects as seriously as If this were a real science fiction horror film, rather than trying to make a joke of the sometimes obvious strings (well, chicken offal, but you know what I mean). Effects are very obviously Jackson’s forte, and the things he can wangle on such a non-existent budget put many other films to shame. Compare this film to the cheesy digital effects preferred by purveyors of plastic mediocrity like the SyFy channel and you’ll see what I mean instantly. Of course, the effects are not spectacular even by the standards of the day; indeed, the gore often looks patently fake (nothing here can hold a candle to gore-porn touchstones like Zombie Flesh Eaters or Cannibal Holocaust), and once you first twig it, it becomes very obvious the actors are just rattling the guns around for later animated muzzle flashes. But that’s the thing; it’s only when you twig it. For me, that was probably on the fourth or fifth watching. Bad Taste, like the best of its brethren, achieves suspension of disbelief through nothing more or less than sheer charm. You like Bad Taste because it is an eminently likeable film, made with great ingenuity and cunning by a group of friends who are obviously having the time of their lives, and for no other higher purpose than the joy of doing it. That, I think, is the real key to the ‘b-movie’ or ‘cult’ aesthetic, and what separates the best of the genre from the low budget films that try to play the angle for financial gain (Asylum films and much of the latter-day output of Troma come instantly to mind).  You can’t sit down and try to make a cult classic; you have to try and actually make a film instead.

I’m going to try out a rating system here. Rather than bother with stars or thumbs up, like some hacks, I’m instead going to rate each film, rather metatextually, with a still from The Bride of Frankenstein. I rate Bad Taste:

 

“We’ve got the reason to believe

We’ve got the power to succeed

But the minute you let me down

I get a Bad Taste in my mouth…”

 

Bonus Material: “Good Taste made Bad Taste”, a brilliant little New Zealand TV documentary about the making of the film, available on youtube: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.