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An all-out comedy science fiction flick that comes close to drowning in its own gore, Bad Taste marks the feature debut of Antipodean Peter Jackson. Down in the Southern Hemisphere, a frantic phone call from Kaihoro (a small town on the New Zealand coast) reaches a semi-robotic civil servant. Recognising the warning relayed by the near-incoherent messenger, he sends in the boys from the Astro Invasion Defence Service (A.I.D.S.). The forward unit, consisting of Derek (Peter Jackson) and Barry (Pete O'Herne), makes its way to Kaihoro. Finding the place utterly devoid of humanity, instead they stumble upon an alien known as Robert (Peter Jackson again) and capture him. Unfortunately, Robert has friends, one of whom chases Barry to a messy end on the beach.

Meanwhile the remainder of the government team, Frank (Mike Minett) and Ozzie (Terry Potter), are in transit with a cargo of weaponry. They're routinely sceptical of Derek's alien identifications, but when Barry mentions Robert they show a little more interest. Unfortunately, they're way behind schedule, so Barry and Derek are left to deal with the hostile reinforcements as best they can. The resulting carnage isn't particularly pretty, but it's a good thing that these 3rd Class soldiers aren't much brighter than your average zombie. This is, however, scant consolation to Giles (Craig Smith), a fairly innocent bystander who picked the wrong day to go debt collecting. Pretty soon it all goes pear-shaped, with the alien leader Lord Crumb (Doug Wren) congratulating himself on an unexpected delicacy that has fallen into his troop's hands. Now it's all up to the A.I.D.S. team!

The product from four years of weekend shooting, Bad Taste is one of those films where the director has to show his virtuosity by doing everything bar make the tea. In this instance, Peter Jackson produces, directs, acts (in multiple roles), oversees the cinematography, creates the special effects, applies the make-up and only consents to collaborate on editing and script writing. It is thus quite remarkable that Bad Taste didn't end up as a vanity product, but instead evolved into a fairly consistent and internationally marketable product. The latter is not too surprising though, since there's a steady world-wide demand for outrageous gore. The unusual aspect is that Jackson undermines the standard constructs of the hack'n'slash genre with a mixture of humour and message. Throughout Bad Taste the over-the-top violence is played strictly for laughs, while constantly hinting at the rapacious tactics of megalomaniac corporations.

A side-effect of the amateur cast and crew is that Bad Taste remains weak in several key areas. The most significant is that this is fundamentally a one-joke movie; ugly extra-terrestrials scout out Earth for new product lines and a minor hit-squad is mobilised to wipe them out. The problem is that when the fighting and revolting visuals fade away, the storyline slows to a crawl and stagnates. The lack of filler isn't helped much by the dire performances, most of which barely inch past the first base of characterisation. With acting as incompetent as the roles themselves, it's something of a blessing that the cast members stick rigidly to the few defining parameters of their persona. The exception here is Lord Crumb, dryly amusing at all times (particularly as he starts to get ticked off by the pesky humans). The calibre of the players probably explains the lack of dialogue, although at least the lines are pretty funny where they exist.

Overall, Bad Taste succeeds by not pretending to be something it isn't. At heart it's a staggeringly gory film (a bit like alien liposuction with fluids and internal organs spraying everywhere) which shows off Jackson's nascent talents for humour, effects and horror (of sorts). It has several truly inspired and disgusting scenes (more in evidence in later films), which partially weigh against the way in which Bad Taste staggers all over the place. For example, one of these moments arrives when Lord Crumb, who has maintained human form all along (a typical low-budget compromise), reverts to his true shape. So, even though Bad Taste is far more than an exercise in repulsion, it is most sympathetically thought of as a showcase for Jackson and a precursor of the joy to come.

A review by Damian Cannon