Bad Taste

Peter Jackson (1987, New Zealand)

Cast: Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Craig Smith, Mike Minett, Peter Jackson, Doug Wren

Plot:
Four dim-witted men from the New Zealand National Air and Space Defense League arrive in a small New Zealand fishing town to investigate a report of landing UFO's and take on a batallion-sized army of aliens who have massacred the town's population as part of their plans to use humans as part of their main ingredient for their intergalactic fast-food chain.

Appreciation: 9/10
Once, there was a man. This man had a vision. This man had a passion, and this man had talent. This man started making movies. And they were good, they were real good!
Meet Peter Jackson. Considering his movie route, it's totally amazing how it came to be that he's now more widely known to be the director of the biggest film ever (nope, i'm not talking about Titanic you dimwitted, i'm talking about Lord of the Rings). This guy made other gems such as Dead Alive and Meet the Feebles. He loves what he does, he has fun doing it, and it really shows. But i digress..
The movie could be summed up as: Rambo & Mr. Bean with an evil dead attitude vs planet of the apes from outer space. Well, sorta.. Bad Taste lives up to it's title as well as it's reputation. I wanted to see this film for a long time, and now that i've seen it, i must admit it was totally different from what i expected (fortunately not in a bad way). I kinda expected a gorier and less p.c. version of Mars Attack or something around those lines. Extremely gory it is, and politically correct it is not. And it doesn't look anywhere close to Mars Attack, and that's not a bad thing here.
It takes exactly 10 seconds for the movie to pick up, and after that it almost never lets down until the end. Right from the beginning, the dialogues and situations are so absurd it's unreal. Then you 're hit by some of the most clever gore scenes ever. Nothing is censored here and it's a shame that more movies are not like this. Perhaps less gory than Dead Alive, i'd say it's actually more graphical and gross and there is plenty to be disgusted by.
But the fun doesn't stop there. Once you realize that the "aliens" look curiously like humans directly from a mental hospital, you know for sure that you're in for a low-budget auto-parody b-rated film. And that's not even mentionning the "human" characters that are all more wacko than the other. Peter Jackson himself plays Derek, a nerd with head problems who ends up like Evil Dead's Ash. Simply hysterical performance.
Of course the movie has its flaws. For exemple, the shooting scenes drag for too long and should have been cut down. And the humor is sometimes a bit easy and too much pre-pubescent, but the ton of really funny moments more than make up for this (and you have to expect this kind of humor anyways, with such a title).
Now i can't help but chuckle at the thought that unwary viewers will rent this movie to see Peter Jackson's earlier work after watching LOTR.

Other suggestions: Re-Animator, Evil Dead, Dead Alive