The no-budget movie that started Peter Jackson's career as a film director. It took about four years of off and on shooting (the whole thing apperently started as a joke anyway) with a camera that had to be wound up by hand every thirty seconds. The story is that a gang of extraterrestrial meat merchants have come to earth to harvest human flesh which is to be sold to fast food restaurants across the galaxy and it's up to a team of alien investigators (think New Zealand's answer to X-Files but with more guns) to put a stop to it. Not only does it feature chainsaws, there's also exploding sheep, eating of brains, lots of blood and gore and fun for the whole family. When you're in the right mood, this is an incredibly funny movie.

With some help from the New Zealand Film Commission, the film was released in 1987 and became a true cult classic. Jackson moved on to direct films like Meet the Feebles and Brain Dead. He is also doing the upcoming movie on Lord of the Rings. Now, this could be interesting...

Fun facts about the movie:

  • Jackson stars in at least two roles in the movie: as Derek the investigator ("I'm a Derek. And Dereks don't run.") and the particularly stupid alien who gets a hammer to fight with when the others get sledgehammers. These two characters fights each other on top of a cliff at one point.
  • The reason that the aliens heads are the shape they are is that they had to fit into Ma Jacksons oven when they were being created.
  • All weapons in the movie were made out of bits of paper, metal and wood. For obvious reasons, the film crew could not use ammo in these weapons. Instead, Jackson went through each frame of film where a weapon was fired and punched little holes in the film with a needle.

Bad Taste is sort of a nebulous concept, but basicly it's used to refer to ideas, comments, artwork, situations, and behavior that is needlesly ugly, vulgar or juvenile or is used in a very inappropriate situation without much consideration of the feelings of others.

An example of bad taste would be making out with your date at a funeral. Dead Baby Jokes are another example of something in bad taste, even more so when they are told in the presence of expectant parents. Giving a blow up doll to a recently dumped friend would also be in exceedingly bad taste.

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