Bad Taste (1987) or, Hungry Aliens in New Zealand

11/13/2013

Bad Taste (1987) or, Hungry Aliens in New Zealand

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A grisly alien in a suit, flipping the bird while holding a Kalashnikov makes up this eye-popping poster for Peter Jackson's Bad Taste

Aliens land by a small town in New Zealand to harvest humans for fast food consumption, but are met with a ragtag para-military resistance.

Bad Taste is written by Ken Hammon (The Murder House (1998, short)), Tony Hiles (Jack Brown Genius (1996)) and debuting New Zealander master filmmaker co-writer/director/cinematographer/co-editor/co-star Peter Jackson (The Frighteners (1996)).
Bad Taste is a gory crazy-comedy: Guts, blood and brains fly right and left, while just about everyone over-act absurdly throughout, - all in pretty bad taste, some might argue. But the film is highly entertaining and seriously impressive technically for a debut, all things considered.
The amount of special effects in Bad Taste is enormous, and the film is funny, made with tons of boyish glee and enthusiasm and really out there. It points ahead to Jackson's best film, Dead Alive/Braindead (1992) for us who dare prefer it over the filmmaker's later Lord of the Rings triumphs.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (2012) - Jackson's megalomania gives birth to the first third of an enormous fantasy whopper

The Lovely Bones (2009) - Despite qualities, Jackson's metaphysical crime drama is a wasteful jumble
The Frighteners (1996) - FX-driven ghost comedy madness
Top 10: The best big flop movies reviewed by Film Excess to date
Braindead/Dead Alive (1992) - Jackson's best film ever is a gore classic!

Jackson talks about making the film in an interview here

Cost: Reportedly 260k NZ$, approximately 163k $
Box office: Uncertain but in excess of 114k $
= Uncertain but likely a huge hit (projected return of at least 6.13 times its cost)

[Bad Taste was released 25 December (New Zealand) and runs 92 minutes. Shooting took place in New Zealand from 1983-87. Jackson shot the film reportedly without a script, (so the three writer's credits are seemingly more for thinking up ideas through the long shooting process), on a 25 year-old 16 mm Bolex camera, funding it mostly himself, with friends acting in the film. All the alien masks were reportedly baked in Jackson's mother's oven! The New Zealand Film Commission invested 235k NZ$ into the completion of the film, bringing its total cost to 260k $, since 25k $ were reportedly spent besides this money. The details concerning the film's performance in New Zealand or any of the other many markets that it released in are regrettably not available online, but it is likely that the film at least grossed 1-2 mil. $ and would therefore be at least a huge hit. The only available gross number is that the film sold 29k tickets in France, which accounts for approximately 114k $. The film was temporarily banned in Queensland, Australia, and censored in other markets. Jackson returned with Meet the Feebles (1989). Bad Taste is fresh at 71 % with a 6.40/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Bad Taste?

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Donald Sutherland has passed away

Born in Canada, Sutherland battled polio as a child. His first credit was in Suspense (1963, TV-series) and his first film was The Castle of the Living Dead (1964). Later credits in his remarkable career include The Saint (1965-66), The Dirty Dozen (1967), M*A*S*H (1970), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Klute (1971), Don't Look Now (1973), 1900 (1976), Casanova (1976), The Eagle Has Landed (1976), Ordinary People (1980), A Dry White Season (1989), JFK (1991), Outbreak (1995), Fallen (1998), Virus (1999), Fierce People (2005), Pride & Prejudice (2005), Lord of War (2005), The Hunger Games (2012), The Undoing (2020, miniseries) and many more. He passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Roger Corman has passed away

Born in Detroit, Michigan, Corman had a sprawling, intellectually hungry life as a youth and young man before arriving with his first film in 1955, Five Guns West. He would follow that with titles such as Apache Woman, It Conquered the World, Attack of the Crab Monsters, Teenage Cave Man, A Bucket of Blood, House of Usher, The Little Shop of Horrors, The Pit and the Pendulum, The Intruder, The Raven, The Terror, The Masque of Red Death, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Wild Angels, The Trip, Bloody Mama and many more. As a producer he was behind almost 500 films. Arguably among the most important filmmakers of the 20th century, Corman passed away at age 98. R.I.P.

William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

Born in Vaucluse, France, Trintignant's theatrical debut as an actor was in If All the Guys in the World... (1955). Later credits include ...And God Created Woman (1956), The Seven Deadly Sins (1961), Inferno (1964), A Man and A Woman (1966), My Love, My Love (1967), A Man to Kill (1967), The Great Silence (1968), Z (1969), The Assassination (1972), Three Colors: Red (1994), Amour (2012), Happy End (2017) and many more. He also wrote and directed two films in the 1970s. Trintignant passed away at age 91. R.I.P.

Ray Liotta has died

Adopted from an orphenage at a young age, Liotta got hooked on acting in high school. He had various TV credits in the late 1970s and early 80s, with his film debut in The Lonely Lady (1983). Later credits include Something Wild (1986), Field of Dreams (1989), Goodfellas (1990), Cop Land (1997), Hannibal (2001), Blow (2001), Narc (2002), John Q (2002), Identity (2003), Observe and Report (2009), Youth in Revolt (2009), The Details (2011), Killing THem Softly (2012), The Place Beyond the Pines (2012), Shades of Blue (2016-18), The Simpsons (2018, TV-series), Marriage Story (2019), The Many Saints of Newark (2021), Black Bird (2022, TV-series) and many more. Liotta passed away at age 67 in his sleep while on production in the Dominican Republic. R.I.P.

Philip Baker Hall has died

Born in Ohio, Hall didn't start acting until he was 30. His long list of credits include Zabriskie Point (1970), Miami Vice (1987, TV-series), Midnight Run (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Cheers (1993, TV-series), Hard Eight (1996), The Rock (1996), Air Force One (1997), Boogie Nights (1997), Seinfeld (1991-98), Rush Hour (1998), The Insider (1999), Magnolia (1999), The Talented Mr. Ripley (1999), Bruce Almighty (2003), Dogville (2003), The Zodiac (2005), Zodiac (2007), Curb Your Enthusiasm (2004-09), Mr. Popper's Penguins (2011), Modern Family (2011-12) and many more. Hall passed away at age 90. R.I.P.

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11/13/2013

Bad Taste (1987) or, Hungry Aliens in New Zealand

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