Bad Taste

Plot synopsis:
The New Zealand Astro Investigation and Defence Service (AIDS) sends Derek, Frank, Ozzy, and Barry to investigate the disappearance of everyone in the town of Kaihoro, North Island, New Zealand. They find the town has been overrun by space aliens disguised as humans. Barry kills one of the aliens and is attacked by others weilding sledge hammers. After Derek notifies Frank and Ozzy (whom are traveling on the road towards Kaihoro), he begins torturing Robert, an alien they captured 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 over a cliff, to his presumed death.Meanwhile, a charity bill collector named Giles is passing through Kaihoro. He is attacked by Robert, who has been eating the brains of the alien killed earlier by Barry. Giles escapes in his car and stops at a nearby house for help. Another alien (dressed as a chef) answers the door and captures Giles. He later wakes up in a tub of water and is told he is about to be 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 sneak into the aliens' house and find a room filled with bloody cardboard boxes. They kidnap an 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 for this intergalatic fast food chain called 'Crum's Country Delights'. Robert vomits into a bowl, which the aliens dine on, including the disguised (and disgusted) Frank. He escapes and tells the team members 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. A long and climatic gun battle breaks out with dozens of ailens (wieling AK-47 assault rifles and various automatic weapons) battle the four humans. Derek joins in on the battle only to have his hat shot off, 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 a lot of more aliens along the way. Meanwhile, Derek kills an alien with his chainsaw and replaces the missing parts of his brain with alien 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.As they run, Lord Crumb shoots Ozzy in both of his legs 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 the alien leader 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. Lord Crumb hears a strange, loud noise and investigates. He is killed by Derek, who ambushes him and cuts the alien in half with his chainsaw. Derek proclaims into his phone: "I'm born again! 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 where he will presumably kill the rest of the alien race (with just his one chainsaw).On Earth in the final shot, Frank, Ozzy, Giles, and Barry drive away into the sunset in Derek's car.

Tags: cult, comedy, violence

Review:
It seems fitting that in the wake of the excellent Lord of the Rings films, that we should have a look at just what started director Peter Jackson on the road to being one of the worlds greatest visionaries.
Jackson started small, very small, and clawed his way up the movie ladder using nothing more than pure determination and a raw talent for film-making.Jackson's first feature was Bad Taste, a low, low-budget horror comedy movie made over two years about aliens killing humans for their fast-food business back in space.
This is an even greater achievement when you consider just how much gore there is in the film, but the finale, in which a huge mansion is rocketed into space, defies the rules of its low budget and minimal crew.Even the cast were so minimal that the same aliens can be seen, if you look hard enough, being killed over and over again throughout the film, and Jackson himself takes on two roles; the unstable Derek and a mad alien called Robert.
At first it is hard to imagine that Jackson would go on from this to directing one of the best films of all time, but when you look closely, examine just what Jackson could do with no money and no crew, you begin to realise that a true genius was at work here.Bad Taste is a delirious testament to the 'just-get-out-there-and-do-it' school of film-making, as that is literally what Jackson did.
This extremely bloody and hilariously funny gore comedy from the director of "Braindead" and "Meet the Feebles" is about some aliens,who gather in a small New Zealand town to harvest human beings as a food source for their struggling intergalactic fast food.Four agents of the Alien Investigation and Defense Sector(A.I.D.S)are called on to stop them."Bad Taste" was filmed on a shoestring budget over a period of four years,using second hand equipment,and produced by and starring all Jackson's friends and work colleagues.The amount of bloodshed in this film is really high,but the gore is presented in such a way that it just makes you laugh hysterically.There's vomit eating,brain eating,exploding heads,flying guts and even exploding sheep.A must see for horror,splatter and gore fans!.
BAD TASTE, the worldwide cult hero Peter Jackson's first picture, concerns four bumbling government agents whose job it is to rid scenic New Zealand of any alien scum that may be invading their otherwise peaceful country.
Jackson's camera-work and special effects are nothing short of mind-blowing, and the fast-paced editing really gives this 16mm wonder a big-budget, professional look while still maintaining a goofy, campy feel.Sure, the acting may be a bit over-the-top, and the meandering script does seem largely improvised, but these "shortcomings" only add to the picture's fun, crazy atmosphere, helping to make it even funnier.
All in all, if you're a fan of gore movies, alien romps, or just good ol' fashioned black comedy, then you don't want to miss BAD TASTE.
Directed by the New Zealand king of low-budget gore - Peter Jackson, who also takes the starring role in his debut film as 'Derek', the leader of the alien prevention group 'Alien Investigation and Defence Service' - A.I.D.S(!), who are called into action when a group of aliens land on earth with the intention of kidnapping humans and using them as the main ingredient for their fast food restaurants!
Naturally Derek and his crew are none too happy about this and set about stopping them in the only way they know how - violently.As you can imagine with a plot like this and with Peter Jackson involved you can expect extreme gore mixed with extreme cheese, for example there is this one part where an alien has been severed in two from being hit by a car, his remaining top half fends off Jackson's attacks with a chainsaw by throwing pine cones at him!
Before Peter Jackson went on to huge success with A-list Hollywood films he was quite the horror film director (just watch Dead Alive!) and this ultra low-budget flick was his cinematic debut.A half-baked group of 'agents' must save the world when some aliens arrive to harvest humans for their fast food chain.From the premise alone one can tell that this flick is very campy, and rather darkly funny too!
The movie is excellent on gore and low humor but this cannot save the film from a pointless,stupid plot and quite frankly was boring for an exception of the gory parts.
Well, if you like comedies , gore and blood....please watch this master piece....but be careful...it can change the way you think about movies.
Let's face it - When it comes to its hilarious, old school, grind-gore effects (that are really quite over-the-top and need to be seen to be believed), Bad Taste is a small-scale "Alien Invasion" picture that would have, otherwise, been forgotten long ago and dismissed as pure rubbish without them.With so much going against it (terrible dialogue, dumb situations, badly-staged violence, incompetent direction, predictable story), 1987's Bad Taste would be Peter Jackson's first feature film as a director and, with that, it, unfortunately, showed his amateur status clearly at this very early stage in his career.All-in-all - The appropriately titled "Bad Taste" was at least worth a few honest-to-goodness belly-laughs.
Set in the remote, New Zealand town of Kiahoro, Bad Taste was produced on a shoe-string budget of just 200,000 NZ dollars.Besides not giving a sweet-damn about the fate of any of the characters in the story, this viewer also thought that the film's rock & roll soundtrack stank, big-time.Oh, well - What the heck, eh?
I used to enjoy guts the more the better, and found Jackson inspiring enough.Well, after 10-15 min of Bad Taste, I was wondering if I'm too old for that kind of stuff, because I couldn't find anything interesting about this film.
And one more +1 if you like to see Peter Jackson acting.If you want to watch this just because you loved Lord Of The Rings or Heavenly Creatures, run away, fast..
My Rating : 7/10I am a Peter Jackson fan and 'Bad Taste' is his first film.
This movie is intended to make part of the audience reel and another part scream--though it's bad taste done, obviously, with a wink.Most of the movie is a series of wild chases, terrifying fist fights, nauseating sight gags and bizarre gun battles, studded with gore and homages to "Night of the Living Dead," "Evil Dead" and "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre." But throughout, despite the budget, it's staged and shot with deep-focus bravura and brilliance, non-stop verve and relentless energy.Like "Dead Alive," "Bad Taste" means to scare us and make us laugh, go past all our defenses.
When I decided to take on Meet the Feebles (1989) earlier this month I was taken aback by just how clever the man was when he first started making waves in schlocky horror movies business.Bad Taste (1987) was the director's first full-length film shot on a minuscule budget of just $30,000 New Zealand Dollars or just over $25,000 American.
It's now up to Ozzy (Terry Potter), Barry (Pete O'Herne), Derek (Peter Jackson) and Frank (Mike Minett) to put a stop to their plan before they expand to other parts of the island, and maybe the world!On the face of it, Bad Taste plays like a lesser version of The Evil Dead Trilogy (1981-1992) made memorable by its exotic island location.
The dialogue edges just north of bland and there's something to be said about the sound mixing which is out of synch in places.Still, no one watches a movie like Bad Taste to read lips and Peter Jackson's script requires a lot of running, hiding, physical confrontations, gunfire and blood gushing.
In the case of Jackson's story about fast food loving aliens, consider Bad Taste a work in progress.http://www.theyservepopcorninhell.blogspot.com.
It is hard to believe that Peter Jackson's first independent feature lead him to make movies like Heavenly Creatures and Lord of the Rings for that matter..
I was one of the lucky few who caught Bad Taste on the big screen way back in the late 80s, and I absolutely loved it; but I never guessed that its director, Peter Jackson, would ever find fame, fortune and acceptance from mainstream cinema-goers—his style was for cult movie audiences only, or so I thought (mind you, I made the same mistake with a certain Mr. Raimi too).Last night I watched the film again for the first time in years, and now, with hindsight, I can see how blinkered I was: the subject matter might be a million miles away from his recent mega-budget efforts, and the presentation a tad rough around the edges, but Bad Taste displays enough ingenuity, style and undeniable raw talent from the director that his future success should have been glaringly obvious, even to a naive young gore-hound like me.The film sees a small paramilitary force—the Astro Investigation and Defense Service (AIDS)—sent to investigate the disappearance of the entire population of the New Zealand coastal town of Kaihoro; there, they discover that extraterrestrials, led by intergalactic fast food magnate Lord Crumb, have butchered the locals and packed them in boxes for immediate export.
Armed with a range of automatic weapons, the boys from AIDS—Derek (Peter Jackson), Frank (Mike Minett), Ozzy (Terry Potter), and Barry (Pete O'Herne)—set out to ruin Crumb's plans to launch human flesh as the new taste experience for his customers.Made on a minuscule budget over a four year period by an enthusiastic Jackson and like-minded friends, Bad Taste is a wonderful, wacky splatter-fest that successfully mixes daft slapstick humour with outrageous violence so cartoonish in style that its impossible to take offence at.
Inevitably, the film suffers from some glaring continuity errors, terrible acting, and the occasional technical gaff, but the final film is so entertaining that it's easy to be forgiving about such trifling details.Despite this being his first feature film, Jackson's handling of his material is both assured and very effective: he employs lots of creative camera-work—hand-held dolly shots, severe close ups and extreme angles—the likes of which he still utilises in his work today and which go to give his movies that distinctive Jackson vibe; he also does a great job with the editing (which ensures that film never drags and that the narrative flows properly) and was even responsible for the film's many make-up effects (he baked the rubber alien masks in his mother's oven!).Even if outrageous, low budget, low-brow horror isn't your thing (and it's your loss if it isn't), such invention, dedication and determination has got to be admired..
Peter Jackson's strange (and graphically violent) movies are far beyond the limits of Troma (THE TOXIC AVENGER) and Herschell Gordon Lewis (BLOOD FEAST), so it's simple to see why BAD TASTE excels much further in its gruesome detail, but it's way too overdone.
Sure, any buff who watches movies like BAD TASTE would rate a perfect "10" on the scale, but that isn't always a good thing.
The character of Derek is the funniest one in the film, and he has some pretty hilarious one-liners; "I'm a Derek and Derek's don't run", "The headshot's the only true stopper", "I'm born again" (the last remark should be taken into context with the climax).Overall, not a bad movie, even though it may at first glance look like one.
It's hard to imagine that this director, who now specializes in big budget Hollywood movies, started off by creating twisted and gory low budget movies – his directorial debut, Bad Taste, being the prime example of this early, strange phase.
Bad Taste is a definite must see for every aspiring movie maker, if only for Peter Jackson's creativity.The movie follows 4 agents (called 'The Boys') of some sort of secret service, who investigate alien activity in a small town.
This time the good guy has the chainsaw, but will he be able to defeat the evil corporate aliens who are just trying to supply their fast-food chain?And, yes, this is the same Peter Jackson of Lord of the Rings fame.Be prepared for some really bloody scenes, and humor that borders on the outrageous.
This is a gory and hilarious splatter-satire that Jackson shot with a bunch of friends and an extremely low budget.Aliens, who nourish both on human flesh and their own vomit, have come to New Zealand.
yeah i totally agree with the other chap pie thats commented above me..all i would like to add is the acting is typically "austrailian" as in "cheesey" in fact there's as much cheese as a "mozzarella avalanche" but the effects in it a gruesome & realistic..if they had of put a bit more effort in it & less cheese this would of been a head turning movie but i will still give it 9/10 cause its just so bizarre just a shame about the cheese oh and to add to it please don't forget about the year in which the film was made in somewhere around 1989 or 1990 so whatever you do leave your take away alone or you wont be enjoying it or you'll be vomiting anyway sit back & enjoy the movie OK & stop thinking of cheese....regards Keith also please contact me if you want more details but i think the other guy above me said it all..bye.
I can't say that I'm a huge fan of Jackson's work in movies such as The Lord Of The Rings or even Braindead/Dead-Alive (not to say this movie didn't have its moments) but I can certainly see why he got so famous.All of the gore is lovely to watch and is presented in a more comical manner.
Peter Jackson shows he has a sick sense of humor in the gore fest Bad Taste.
However, the absurd violence is frequently hilarious (watch as Jackson--who plays an alien hunter--packs his brains back into his skull) and a mere preview to the complex slapstick he'd utilize in "Dead Alive" and "The Frighteners"  "Bad Taste" ultimately plays out like a 10-page list of ideas stretched to feature length--it's outrageous and excessively gross, but also slow-moving...and not very endearing.
The ultra-cheap budget is equally apparent, with a small cast which looks more like a gathering of some of the directors mates (which is probably not so far from the truth) however Jackson's creative and technical talents make this project a whole lot more enjoyable than the script points towards.The story of a heavily disguised alien party being rumbled by a secret government task force with some very dubious recruits is kept simple but crammed with plenty of set pieces, dollops of gore, physical gags and some off-kilter jokes.Peter Jackson's talents as a director were already beginning to flourish with his work here, and his hands on approach to film making from the creation of gun props from metal stampings to choreographing a two people fight sequence with one actor, have put together an original entertaining piece of schlock.While the over the top make-up effects and surreal humour (what the hell was that car with the Beatles driving all about?) may not be everyone's cup of tea, Fangoria fans and struggling film students alike will find Bad Taste inspiring, proving lack of funds can be overcome by a little ingenuity and a little imagination..
In the case of Bad Taste, Jackson got his buddies together and made a little over-the-top (in a good way) film that is one of the most successful low-budget pictures ever made.
I happen to be a fan of Lord Of The Rings,Dead Alive and Bad Taste, but I must say I prefer these independent type movies to the big budgeted ones.
It's funny to see how the acclaimed director of Lord of the Rings started his career making cheap indie movies from New Zealand like this one.
Peter Jackson excellent movie, I've been a fan of your work for years but I must say two things.
Just the simple fact that this was such a low B movie makes it great this just goes to show that peter jackson can work with anything.
Despite being made on a low-budget, having bad acting, shaky camerawork and a plot that is best described as thin, this is one of the best splatter films ever made and is a great movie to watch with a bunch of mates.Aliens are invading earth (well New Zealand actually), and are going to turn the human race into a new fast food on their planet.
Before "The Frighteners" and "The Lord of the Rings," Peter Jackson's first film was a funny and gory film called "Bad Taste" made in 1987.
The great looking alien FX costumes that where made in Peter Jackson's own oven, add to this cult horror film.
But watch Bad Taste to see an alien give birth to Peter Jackson himself.8/10.
This low-budget horror, action, alien whatever movie makes you laugh every time you watch it.
Well, we still have 'Bad Taste' on the small screen and thank God. Watch it if you love Gore, Fun, Humour, Action, Aliens and the nice surroundings of New Zealand.
=)  The bad reviews here are from people who do not appreciate this old and low budget way of making a good movie.
After seeing Braindead I felt myself drawn into watching Peter Jacksons earlier horror movies, starting with Bad Taste.
It´s a semi-professional amateur movie with a rapid gun fight action at the second half, slimy and gory jokes, grotesque humor: if you had fun with other films by Peter Jackson, "Meet the Feebles" or "Braindead" you´ll surely like this one.
Like a lot of other fans of his "early works", I am knocked over by the fact that Peter Jackson was tapped to direct the long awaited Rings trilogy of films.